UnitedHealth pays CEO billions. They are completely in the GOP pocket

[bigtree]

from the March/April 2004 Issue of Mother Jones

Medicare's Hidden Bonanza

After millions in campaign contributions, an insurance magnate's 10-year lobbying campaign finally pays off.

By Michael Scherer
http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/03/02_401.html

For conservative leaders, the best part of the Medicare bill President Bush signed in December had absolutely nothing to do with Medicare. Rather, the provision that (then) House Speaker Dennis Hastert call(ed) "the most important piece in the bill" and former Speaker Newt Gingrich consider(ed) "the single most important change in health care policy in 60 years" is a little-noticed tax rebate set to cost the Treasury $6.4 billion over the next decade. The measure allow(ed) Americans to open tax-free "health savings accounts," which can be used to pay medical bills—in effect removing their owners from the shared risk that has been the core of the health-insurance system since World War II.

Conservatives claim(ed) health savings accounts will encourage people to more closely monitor their health care spending and bring down medical costs. Critics call(ed) the accounts a tax shelter that will benefit the wealthy and draw young, healthy workers out of health care plans, potentially doubling the cost of insurance for everyone else. But no matter who is right about the long-term impact, there is little doubt about the biggest short-term winner. He is J. Patrick Rooney, a major Republican campaign donor from Indiana who has done more than anyone else to make health savings accounts a reality. Rooney is the chairman emeritus of the Indianapolis-based Golden Rule Insurance Co., which has been selling health savings accounts through a now-expired pilot program that Rooney helped convince Congress to approve in 1996. Just days before the new Medicare bill passed, UnitedHealth Group, the largest insurer in America, paid $500 million in cash for Rooney's family-owned company—a move that analysts said was directly tied to the Medicare bill's provisions broadening the market for health savings accounts.


Rarely has a basic federal program been so tied to one man or one company. In their 10-year campaign to promote health savings accounts, Rooney's family, companies, and employees have given $3.6 million to political candidates and committees, with 90 percent going to Republicans. Rooney and his companies gave another $2.2 million to Republican organizations, including $121,000 to help pay for President Bush's Florida recount battle, and nearly $1.9 million for a group called the Republican Leadership Coalition, which ran attack ads against Al Gore during the 2000 campaign. Rooney also registered himself as a lobbyist and spent close to $2.2 million working the halls of Congress and the White House.


In the meantime, the Golden Rule division of UnitedHealth has gotten a jump start on the competition, having rolled out new health savings accounts within weeks of the bill's passage. By then, UnitedHealth's stock had already jumped 9 percent. "We know this market exceptionally well," Golden Rule's top lobbyist, Brian McManus, boasted. "We pioneered it."

article: http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/03/02_401.html




related: Insurer's CEO Makes a Billion
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x963615

[Erika]

1. United Health pays minimum wages

for blue collar workers. It is known for low pay.

[bigtree]

2. UnitedHealth grows with govt. graft

Bush: ‘Pioneering’ and privatizing Medicare

Archive Recent Editions 2004 Editions Jun 19, 2004
Author: David Donnelly, The Nations's Health/Workers' Safety

People's Weekly World Newspaper, 06/17/04 12:14


UnitedHealth scored a lucrative acquisition on Nov. 13, 2003, precisely as the Medicare bill was being negotiated behind closed doors. Just days before the Medicare bill was released, UnitedHealth purchased Golden Rule Insurance Company for $500 million cash. Golden Rule and its executives are well-known in political and business circles as passionate advocates of Health Savings Accounts, or HSAs, which have been pursued for years by J. Patrick Rooney, the former chairman of Golden Rule Insurance Co. Rooney has directed millions to Republican candidates and causes, including $121,000 to fund Bush’s recount effort in Florida.

The HSAs had been removed from the Medicare bill early on, but emerged in the final package.

“But while insurers could only guess and gamble on the outcome in Congress, were ready to seize the opportunity,” reported the New York Times. The inclusion of HSAs even surprised some long-time advocates. “People thought it would be gone at the end,” said John C. Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a research group that promotes HSAs. “Frankly even I thought that was going to happen.”

The projected expense of HSAs is approximately $6.4 billion in taxes drained from the U.S. Treasury.

UnitedHealth’s stock price soared on the passage of the Medicare bill, in part, analysts said, due to purchase of Golden Rule and the Medicare provisions on HSAs. (It is now trading at above $63 per share, above its approximate $50 per share level in mid-November, an increase of more than 20 percent.) Golden Rule, now a division of UnitedHealth, announced its new HSA products in January as soon as the Medicare provisions had been implemented, even though the Treasury Department has not yet drafted regulations.

full story: http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/5386/1/220

[OneBlueSky]

3. "Conservative claim health savings accounts will encourage people . . .

to more closely monitor their health care spending and bring down medical costs"

what an assanine statement! . . . how the hell do you "monitor" your health care spending when everything health related is priced at disgustingly high levels? . . . had a hospital stay recently? . . . need cancer medication? . . .

the problem is NOT with people not closely monitoring their health care spending . . . the problem is health care and pharmaceutical companies gouging the public and lining the pockets of their executives and stockholders . . .

we need price controls on this stuff, and we need them now! . . .