Profit margins slim for health insurance companies

Mark Perry:

I've posted several times before about the profitability of the "Health Care Plans" industry, see posts here and here, and reported previously that the health insurance industry ranked #86 by profit margin out of 215 industries, at 3.3%.
Updated data are now available for Q4 of 2009, and the Health Care Plan industry (includes Humana, Aetna, WellPoint, Magellan, Unitedhealth Group, etc.) slipped to #88 with a profit margin of 3.4%. Actually, that industry profit margin was boosted by WellPoint's 18% profit margin for Q4 2009, which was due largely to a one-time sale of its Pharmacy Benefit Management division. Without that sale, WellPoint's profit margin would have been only 3.9%, the industry average profit margin would have been closer to 3%, and the ranking for the industry would have fallen a few places down to #92.
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This is far from the greedy picture painted by liberals who have been pushing the healthcare monstrosity, aka Obamacare.