To be frank, I am getting a bit confused with the relentless bombardment of HealthCare News 24/7. As a layman, I have a few basic questions:

(01) What is the current Profit Margins of insurance companies like United Health Care? The reason this is important is because in the Technology world, it is not uncommon for companies to have raw profit margins of above 30-40%. Are the Insurance Companies as hell bent on “insane profits” as is being claimed? [I intend to research this]

(02) Is every single US citizen going to have an option for Health Insurance? I thought all this was mainly because of 45 Million (there is debate regarding this number) uninsured citizens and their sad plight? Looks like even after all this, we are going to have millions of uninsured citizens.

(03) Is the Medical Costs to a Family really on the rise? Let me check my numbers from 2009 and the projected expenses for 2010. Though my out-of-pocket premiums remain roughly the same, the copayments for each doctor visit (or procedure) has doubled from 10$ to 20$. But the real question should be posed to those folks who are paying for their own HealthCare, as opposed to people like me who get it through big corporations who have significant bargaining power with the Insurance Companies. From associates I hear numbers like 1500-2000$ per month for a family of 4-5 people.

The current solutions being debated seems to me like methods to “help” US citizens pay for their Medical Insurance. For e.g. Government might give a credit which you can apply to your yearly HealthCare costs. If the cost is say 1000$. Government will help pay 300$, so you have to only worry about 700$. But is it really “cost reduction”? The question I have is: Why is the current HealthCare cost 1000$ in the first place?

Hmmmm …. Something to think about!