Jay,
The concern that I would have about the Associated Press article is that they do not cite any reference for their 6% "give or take a point or 2" number. So do they think it is 4% or 8%?? Sloppy reporting on their part.

Remember the old adage: There are lies, d*&* lies, and statistics? There are several surveys and indexes that list different profitability margins. I used this one:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/SoMLoWBKM4I/AAAAAAAAK4g/wKdZyg5LxQ0/s1600-h/profits.bmp Which was based on this one:
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/522qpmd.html
There is also this one:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2008/performers/industries/profits/ and many others.

You could also read this:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2007_August_14/ai_n27342953/ or this:
http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2009/08/25/why-health-insurers-make-lousy-villains.html

People can and do manipulate statistics to support their beliefs - whatever their beliefs happen to be. My point is this; there are multiple indexes out there, but no credible ones that actually show outrageous profits in comparison to other industries.

My other numbers and facts came from business knowledge working in the financial end of healthcare. Some of the information I can not link to the general public (privacy rules) but it is all available in places like here:
http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm030808oth.cfm or here:
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/368/reportcard.pdf