Health care profits show need for reform

It has been reported that the top health insurance companies saw their profits jump 56 percent last year even as 2.7 million more Americans lost coverage. Cigna's profit jumped the most - 346 percent. Cigna and the other four - WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna and Humana - also cut the proportion of premiums spent on medical care, committing relatively more to salaries and profits (report compiled by Heath Care for America Now, a coalition of liberal advocacy groups and labor unions, based on company financial reports for 2009 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission). See http://snipurl.com/ude3h

We should really just get rid of all the insurance companies and create a national health service similar to what every other major industrialized nation on Earth has. A single paying government-run system would dramatically lower costs. Don't forget that auto insurance rates would also go down if we have single payer/universal health care. Why: You wouldn't have to have your auto insurance cover medical costs; it would be included in single payer/universal.

Health care should be non-profit. Profiting from misery is morally wrong. Shareholders should not get big checks while we the people struggle with ever-higher premium costs, denial of coverage and bankruptcy. We should be the shareholders.

Dorothy Stottler

Iowa City