Goldman Sachs has just issued a helpful report for the insurance industry, identifying the profit potential for them in various likely outcomes of the current healthcare access reform initiative. Their conclusion: the best thing for the insurance companies is no reform at all, followed by the weakest possible reform; the worst thing for them is real reform with universal access and a publicly-backed plan option.

In other words: the current disaster of a system is the one that provides the greatest possible profit potential to the insurance industry; any effort at increasing access to care is against that industry’s interests, and a robust and successful reform effort is the worst possible thing from an industry whose profits are entirely dependent on charging the highest possible premiums and delivering the least possible care.

The Senate Finance Committee bill, which Goldman’s analysts conclude is the version most likely to survive the legislative process, is described as the “base” scenario. Under that legislation (which did not include a public plan) the earnings per share for the top five insurers would grow an estimated five percent from 2010 through 2019. And yet, the “variance with current valuation” — essentially, what the value of the stock is on the market — is projected to drop four percent.

Things are much worse, Goldman estimates, for legislation that resembles what was considered and (to a certain extent) passed by the House of Representatives. This is, the firm deems, the “bear case” scenario — in which earnings per share for the top five insurers would decline an estimated one percent from 2010 through 2019 and the variance with current valuation is projected to be negative 36 percent.

What the firm sees as the best path forward for the private insurance industry’s bottom line is, to be blunt, inaction.

The study’s authors advise that if no reform is passed, earnings per share would grow an estimated ten percent from 2010 through 2019, and the value of the stock would rise an estimated 59 percent during that time period.

The next best thing for the insurance industry would be if the legislation passed by the Senate Finance Committee is watered down significantly.

Coincidentally, no doubt, the report arrives from Goldman Sachs – recipient of uncountable billions in public bailout dollars for their executives’ bonuses, from the Obama administration – just as the healthcare access reform plan being pursued right now by that same administration is nearing its final legislative conflict. Goldman helpfully notes in a disclaimer that the firm “does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports.”

All you have to do to see how utterly repulsive the healthcare insurance industry is is to simply watch how they talk about their own business. It is impossible to be disgusted enough by an industry that – uniquely in the industrialized world – treats people’s bodies, health, and lives as saleable commodities in a free market in misery.