So Happy Monday, new week, yeah! This one ends with everyone's favorite holiday Halloween! And an extra hour to recover. What more could one ask besides a rich husband.
Let's start with the happy. We've had quite the glorious fall here and I thought I'd share some of the color we've seen.
The 2 mp camera on my phone doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea.
I'd love to party this weekend, but we'll see how attractive the offers are.
I may stay home and celebrate.
Today I get to buy a new windshield. I'm so excited, I can't tell you. I've probably ranted already over the other insurance company who should be buying it, so I'll just bitch a minute and let it go. if it weren't for that big round circle out of the center of my line of vision I'd forget about it. But hey, the damn thing is only two years old so I feel obligated.
Yesterday i read this bit of propaganda obviously placed by the "poor me" insurance lobby.
I ask you, why should we feel sorry for them? They feel nothing for us!
WASHINGTON – Quick quiz: What do these enterprises have in common? Farm and construction machinery, Tupperware, the railroads, Hershey sweets, Yum food brands and Yahoo? Answer: They're all more profitable than the health insurance industry.
In the health care debate, Democrats and their allies have gone after insurance companies as rapacious profiteers making "immoral" and "obscene" returns while "the bodies pile up."
Ledgers tell a different reality. Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That's anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.
Profits barely exceeded 2 percent of revenues in the latest annual measure. This partly explains why the credit ratings of some of the largest insurers were downgraded to negative from stable heading into this year, as investors were warned of a stagnant if not shrinking market for private plans.
Insurers are an expedient target for leaders who want a government-run plan in the marketplace. Such a public option would force private insurers to trim profits and restrain premiums to compete, the argument goes. This would "keep insurance companies honest," says President Barack Obama.
The debate is loaded with intimations that insurers are less than straight, when they are not flatly accused of malfeasance.
They may not have helped their case by commissioning a report that looked primarily at the elements of health care legislation that might drive consumer costs up while ignoring elements aimed at bringing costs down. Few in the debate seem interested in a true balance sheet.
But in pillorying insurers over profits, the critics are on shaky ground. A look at some claims, and the numbers:
THE CLAIMS
_"I'm very pleased that (Democratic leaders) will be talking, too, about the immoral profits being made by the insurance industry and how those profits have increased in the Bush years." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who also welcomed the attention being drawn to insurers' "obscene profits."
_"Keeping the status quo may be what the insurance industry wants their premiums have more than doubled in the last decade and their profits have skyrocketed." Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, member of the Democratic leadership.
_"Health insurance companies are willing to let the bodies pile up as long as their profits are safe." A MoveOn.org ad.
THE NUMBERS:
Health insurers posted a 2.2 percent profit margin last year, placing them 35th on the Fortune 500 list of top industries. As is typical, other health sectors did much better — drugs and medical products and services were both in the top 10.
The railroads brought in a 12.6 percent profit margin. Leading the list: network and other communications equipment, at 20.4 percent.
HealthSpring, the best performer in the health insurance industry, posted 5.4 percent. That's a less profitable margin than was achieved by the makers of Tupperware, Clorox bleach and Molson and Coors beers.
The star among the health insurance companies did, however, nose out Jack in the Box restaurants, which only achieved a 4 percent margin.
UnitedHealth Group, reporting third quarter results last week, saw fortunes improve. It managed a 5 percent profit margin on an 8 percent growth in revenue.
Van Hollen is right that premiums have more than doubled in a decade, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study that found a 131 percent increase.
But were the Bush years golden ones for health insurers?
Not judging by profit margins, profit growth or returns to shareholders. The industry's overall profits grew only 8.8 percent from 2003 to 2008, and its margins year to year, from 2005 forward, never cracked 8 percent.
The latest annual profit margins of a selection of products, services and industries: Tupperware Brands, 7.5 percent; Yahoo, 5.9 percent; Hershey, 6.1 percent; Clorox, 8.7 percent; Molson Coors Brewing, 8.1 percent; construction and farm machinery, 5 percent; Yum Brands (think KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), 8.5 percent.
___
By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer
Associated Press writer Tom Murphy in Indianapolis contributed to this report.
And this morning I see that we're still beating up queers on the streets. How utterly civilized. I expect lynchings to begin any day.
-(towleroad)A gay man is fighting for his life in a hospital in Liverpool following a vicious gang attack police are treating as a homophobic hate crime:
"The 22-year–old was attacked by up to 13 people at 10pm last night when out with three friends on Stanley Street. He is currently in hospital with multiple skull fractures, a fractured eye socket and a fractured cheek bone...Stanley Street will remained closed until police forensics have completed their investigations. A spokeswoman for Merseyside Police said: 'We were called to reports of a serious assault on Stanley Street at 10pm last night. The victim was taken to hospital with serious head injuries. He has suffered multiple fractures to his skull, a fractured cheek bone and a fractured eye socket. We are treating the incident as a homophobic attack. We believe from witnesses there may have been up to 13 people involved in the attack aged 15–18.'" (bbc)
13 people to kill one queer.
It brings to mind the story I heard on the economy last week on NPR. This guy said he used to leave meetings on Wall street and think "if the people knew, there'd be a revolution." except now they do know and there was no revolution.
I've come to the conclusion that it's not nuclear war, nor terrorism, nor melting glaciers that are going to get us...it's apathy.
Apathy will be our downfall, and the drama queens like me will have to pick up the pieces and browbeat those of you who remain apathetic into action.
Figures.
In the meantime it's work work and more work. I've got to make a book order this morning and then relinquish the car for the afternoon.
So, look over your shoulders gay men and women. They're out there and they're where you least expect them.
And so it goes:
Love
