Quick quiz: What do these enterprises have in common? Farm and construction machinery, Tupperware, the railroads, Big Oil, Hershey sweets, Yum food brands, Google and Yahoo? Answer: They’re all more profitable than the health insurance industry.

In the controversial health care debate making it’s way through Congress, Democrats and their allies have gone after insurance companies as rapacious profiteers making “immoral” and “obscene” returns while “the bodies pile up.”

However, quarterly Profit and Loss statements tell a different reality. California Group 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..

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 continuously targeted by Congress and Obama 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.

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.

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  California Health Insurance  Quotes 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.

Other health sectors doing well
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.

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.  However, this is due to rising health CARE costs which are passed along to consumers via the insurers.  This debate is failing to address the true issue which are the rapidly rising COST of health care.