Word: profitability
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...have to be a Wall Street analyst to do the quick math: with a carrier cost of one-third of a penny, when a customer pays 15 cents to send a message, 98% of that 15 cents is pure profit. (Of course, you already knew that in your gut; that's why your stomach turns every time you examine your cell-phone bill...
...According to Appleby, the fact that the NHS lacks any profit motive can be both a blessing and a curse. "One of the problems of a national health service is that there are not the usual incentives for it to be efficient or to find more productive ways of operating," he says. "But at the same time, politicians are not forced into taking a narrow view of what's efficient. In this instance, they can reject threats to staffing levels of doctors, nurses and administrators while accepting other elements of the report...
...possible. The Fisheries Department has long resisted calls for a ban. This time, though, the available statistics made a moratorium seem at least provisionally necessary, says spokeswoman Nathalie Charbonneau. "We have management and recovery plans in place, whose goal is to create sustainable fisheries that still allow for economic profit. But for the time being, the latest scientific evidence reminds us that if there are no more fish resources, there won't be any economic resources...
Potter is now the only health-insurance insider to lambaste - on the record - the industry's motives. Potter warns that the industry's cooperation, which has been hailed by Democrats, is hogwash, a "charm offensive" designed to disguise its true motive: profit. "This is just a repeat of what they've done before," says Potter, who was hired by Cigna around the time of President Clinton's push for reform in the early 1990s. Insurers were then, as now, pledging change in order to improve health care for Americans...
...tobacco-industry whistle-blower made famous in the movie The Insider, Potter doesn't have a smoking gun or secret documents to unveil. He signed a confidentiality agreement before leaving Cigna and intends to honor it. "I have no intention of disclosing any proprietary information," he says. For-profit health-insurance-industry practices Potter talks about, like rescission - dropping expensive-to-cover policyholders on grounds that they failed to disclose pre-existing health conditions - are not secrets. This is, in fact, how private health insurers make profits. In Potter's view, these practices just need more exposure, which...