Time to end "non-profit" status/tax breaks for Highmark Blue Cross/Shield

[Divernan]

WHO NEEDS TERRORISTS TO DESTROY AMERICA WHEN YOU HAVE GREEDY CORPORATE BASTARDS OUTSOURCING JOBS?

In a very nice piece of investigative reporting, the Pittsburgh POst-Gazette has revealed it obtained internal memos documenting Highmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield's plans to offshore technical work to India. Never mind that Highmark has a surplus of $3.4 BILLION, and enjoys tax breaks from its "non-profit" status.

Highmark's customers are PENNSYLVANIANS! Its officials/executives making this decision live and raise their families in Pennsylvania. The chairman of its board & CEO Is Dr. Kenneth Melani, who lives with his wife and 2 daughters in Indiana Township, PA - a well-to-do suburb of Pittsburgh. Shame on each and every one of them! They should change their company's name to Low Mark.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10230/1080688-192.stm
But in a grim economy in which the official unemployment rate hovers near 10 percent, the notion of exporting jobs is getting increasingly hard for Americans to accept. People who question the patriotism of those who want to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance, would do better to ask how patriotic are the American executives who send jobs to India and other places at a time like this.

That's what Highmark Inc., the nonprofit health insurance giant, is planning to do. Internal memos obtained by Post-Gazette staff writer Bill Toland revealed that Highmark intends to send some of its technology work to India, while seeking buyouts from tech workers and analysts. It's not known yet how many U.S. jobs the overseas work will represent. The outsourcing will be managed by Accenture, of Houston, which has India Delivery Centers that perform information technology services.

Highmark said it must reduce costs "in order to remain competitive. We cannot do business competitively within our present cost structure." An official said on its intranet web site that the offshoring "contract will not only provide additional flexibility in adding or reassigning staff, but more importantly help keep projects within budget."

Efficiency is every business's goal, but with a surplus of $3.4 billion, does Highmark really need to take employment out of Pennsylvania and give it to India? The company, after all, must maintain a charitable mission to keep its nonprofit status in the eyes of the state, which confers certain tax breaks. The insurer does spend significant revenue on charity. In 2005, for instance, Highmark and the state's three other Blue Cross Blue Shield providers pledged $1 billion for the Children's Health Insurance Program and adultBasic, which helps low-income adults afford health insurance. Those funds are still being paid.That's good, but how is charity served by moving jobs away from the state that nurtured Highmark and remains its financial base of support?

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10230/1080688-192.stm#ixzz0x3eLGJF0


Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10230/1080688-192.stm#ixzz0x3beiGoH

[Divernan]

1. Since we have no public option or single payer, what are they

whining about re: "oh, we have to remain competitive!"? You should see the 31 story palatial skyscraper, Fifth Avenue Place, the Highmark headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh, where its' grasping executives toil. We're talking private gyms, private marble baths, handmade rosewood desks, original works of art - oh, it's a tough life they lead - NOT. That's evidently the level of competition with which they're concerned, i.e, are our fatcat execs more lavishly pampered than any other insurance company's fatcats?

[howaboutme]

2. Americas's biggest threat

isn't from terrorism, or other nations, it is from corporations and lobbyists that control our government in the interest of themselves and of other nations.

They are traitors not patriots.

[MrMickeysMom]

3. Don't forget to ask more from the other non-profits...

... like UPMC?