Remember that chart of health insurance finances?

Go down the list, and compare the profit numbers to the revenue numbers. Average out all the ones that had a profit, and it's 3.6 percent. The highest one on the entire list is Wellpoint at 7 percent.

I used the Fortune 500 website to look up these companies in 1999 (not all existed back then). Of those who made a profit, and two didn't, the average of profits was 3 percent. 4 percent was the highest.

What does that tell us? If someone is charging twice what they were ten years ago for a product, but making the same profits, obviously the cost of making the product is an issue. Why all health care costs are going up is a long and complex issue that goes way beyond insurance companies.

We can cross-check this. Let's take Medicare, the Holy Grail of single payer fans. No administration costs, no overhead, no advertising, and run by incorruptible ascetic monks who work out of garrets for no pay.

The government spend $190.5 billion on Medicare in 1999. This was for around 39 million Medicare recipients. About $4,885 per recipient on average.

In 2009, the government spent $430 billion on Medicare, for around 45 million recipients. About $9,556 per recipient.

If I do my math right, that's a 96 percent increase. Almost double. A bit less than 126 percent, but not by much. I didn't correct for inflation, but neither did your charts (since they were comparing to the CPI, they couldn't).