Joe Conason: Playing Monopoly With America’s Health

[marmar]

from Truthdig:



Playing Monopoly With America’s Health

Posted on Oct 21, 2009
By Joe Conason


Popular disgust over the fat premiums that financial executives bestow upon themselves is burgeoning, and rightly so. Those Wall Street piggy banks are filling up with billions upon billions of government-subsidized dollars.

But anyone infuriated by the grossly inflated compensation of the masters of finance should check out the incredible earnings of the top executives in the health insurance business. They’re among the most highly paid suits in the country—not owing to any skill in providing health care, which they don’t do, but because they have succeeded in denying care, quashing competition, driving up costs and winning federal subsidies for their companies.

Last year, WellPoint, the country’s largest health insurer, paid chief executive Angela Braly just under $10 million in salary, options and bonuses, along with the use of a private jet for herself and her family. That included a raise of about $750,000 over her 2007 salary.

UnitedHealth Group, the second largest, paid CEO Stephen J. Hemsley only $3.2 million last year, but in 2007 he took home $13.2 million. His biggest bonanza got away when he was forced by the Securities and Exchange Commission to surrender $190 million in falsely backdated stock options, but that was nothing compared with the nearly $1 billion in options that his predecessor was required to disgorge. The SEC declined to prosecute anyone for those frauds. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091021_playing_monopoly_with_americas_health/

[Zoeisright]

1. I want those asshole fat cats broke and on the street.

There's no other justice that's enough.

[yurbud]

3. they should be in prison for murder for profit. CA AG found they deny 20% of claims

[Ruby the Liberal]

2. "The SEC declined to prosecute anyone for those frauds"

And here, boys and girls, is the root of the problem.

Regulate the financial markets NOW. All of them.

[inna]

4. OBSCENE. These people are worse than the mafia.

:grr:

[bvar22]

5. !