From the Associated Press:

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.

(more…)

Breaking over the wires now:

Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters nationwide say guaranteeing that no one is forced to change their health insurance coverage is a higher priority than giving people the choice of a public option. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 29% take the opposite view. They say it’s more important to give people the choice between private insurance and a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option.

Most liberal voters say giving people the choice of a public option is more important. But, most moderates take the opposite view and Republicans overwhelmingly agree with them.