Top Blue Cross salaries soar: report-by at least 48 percent, CEO by 62%

[The Straight Story]

Top Blue Cross salaries soar: report


As President Obama rails against insurance company abuses in an effort to bolster his health-care reform bill, the salaries for top officials at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Illinois' corporate parent will almost certainly add fuel to his fire.

Crain's Chicago Business says the 10 most senior executives of the nonprofit Health Care Service Corp. saw their compensation jump last year by at least 48 percent, thanks to huge bonuses. Compensation more than doubled for six.

CEO Patricia Hemingway Hall's compensation spiked 62 percent to $8.7 million. That was $2.2 million more than Humana CEO Michael McCallister earned -- even though Humana's $31 billion in revenues last year was nearly double that of the Chicago-based Health Care Service.

"It's greedy and outrageous,'' Wheaton business owner Linda Cherrington told Crain's. Her company switched insurers when Blue Cross premiums went up 45 percent.

http://www.suntimes.com/business/2101711,CST-NWS-bluecross14.article

[benld74]

1. My wife just got switched to Blue Cross THIS year,,

[Xipe Totec]

2. Somehow, I don't feel 62% better served

We got served alright, but not in a good way.

How can they justify asking for rate increases to cover these outrageous compensation packages?

[Lerkfish]

3. because no one is willing or able to stop them

[fooj]

4. I remember him "railing" against Wall Street, too.

He's FOS. Pure and Simple.

[Edweird]

5. All the 'terror' of the coming bill has them acting irrationally...

:sarcasm:

[subterranean]

6. $8.7 million -- and that's for the CEO of a NON-profit insurance company!

Your premium dollars at work.