More Perfect Union has just posted a video breaking down a truth that Big Insurance hopes you never hear: rising “health care costs” are really rising health insurance profits.

As I explained in the video, UnitedHealth, Cigna, CVS/Aetna are part of a cartel of corporate conglomerates that have built a business model that relies on overpayments in Medicare Advantage, shrinking doctor networks and a sprawling web of vertically integrated subsidiaries that vacuum up our premiums, deductibles and tax dollars — and turn them into shareholder returns as Wall Street relentlessly demands.

Here’s a bit of what I said:

“Your premiums, deductibles and pharmacy bills are all going up. We’re told it’s because medical costs are rising, but the bigger story is who’s capturing the money. In just three months, UnitedHealth Group made $4.3 billion in profits on revenues of $113 billion.

Over the past five years, the cost of a family premium has increased 26%. This year, the average cost of a family policy was almost $27,000.

Just about everybody with private insurance will be paying a lot more than that next year, regardless of whether you get it from your employer or buy it on your own. That’s because UnitedHealth and other big insurance companies cannot control rising health care costs.

In fact, insurance companies benefit from medical inflation. They just jack up their premiums enough to cover the additional cost and guarantee them a tidy profit.”

The video points out the real drivers of cost growth — from UnitedHealth’s nearly 2,700 acquisitions to Medicare Advantage overpayments that funnel billions from taxpayers into corporate profits.

If you haven’t watched it yet, I hope you will and share it with everybody else you know. It’s clear that Congress must pass common sense guardrails to stop Big Insurance from writing the rules of American health care and squeezing Americans.