INDEX: The incredible shrinking health insurance market

Number of corporate mergers involving health insurers that took place over the past 13 years: more than 400

Percent of U.S. health insurance markets that are now classified as "highly concentrated": 94

Alabama's rank among all states for percent of the health insurance industry market cornered by one company: 1

Percent of the health insurance market in Alabama controlled by one company: 83

In Arkansas: 75

South Carolina: 66

Louisiana and Georgia: 61

Kentucky: 59

North Carolina: 53

Tennessee and Virginia: 50

Percent of the the health insurance market in Abilene, Texas controlled by one insurer: 85

Median statewide market share of the largest insurer selling coverage to small employer groups in 2002: 33%

In 2008: 47%

Increase in median market share for Blue Cross Blue Shield carriers in 38 states from 2002 to 2005: 51%

Amount UnitedHealth recently agreed to pay to settle multiple suits alleging price-fixing and other anti-competitive behavior: $400 million

Annual growth rate in private health insurance spending per enrollee between 1997 and 2006: 7.3%

Annual growth rate in Medicare spending per enrollee over that period: 4.6%

Percent difference: 37

Average percent increase in health insurance premiums over the past six years: 87

Percent rise in profits at 10 of the country's largest publicly traded health insurance companies from 2000 to 2007: 428

Their collective profits in 2000: $2.4 billion

In 2007: $12.9 billion

Combined total compensation of those companies' CEOs in 2007 alone: $118.6 million

Number of times that exceeds what the average U.S. worker made that year: 468

Average increase in health insurance premiums over the past six years: 87%

Percent of household income spent on employer-sponsored health plan premiums for families in the lowest income category: 20

For families in the top income group: 3.3

Percent by which increases in employer-sponsored health premiums have outpaced wage increases in the past nine years: 400

Number of Americans who are currently uninsured: 47 million

(All statistics from "Premiums Soaring in Consolidated Health Insurance Market," Health Care for America Now, May 2009.)