WellPoint Failed To Deliver Tens Of Millions Of Dollars It Promised To Help Uninsured Americans

[babylonsister]

These people are vile! “It was just not something that the company really wanted to do”??? :grr:

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/18/wellpoint-millions-fail-deliver/

WellPoint Failed To Deliver Tens Of Millions Of Dollars It Promised To Help Uninsured Americans


Health insurance companies have always claimed that they support “affordable, high-quality health care for every American” and are supportive of health care reform efforts and not simply concerned with their profits. To try to project this image of compassion for the uninsured, WellPoint Inc. — which recently came under fire for planning double-digit rate hikes in at least eleven states — pledged three years ago to use its charitable foundation to spend $30 million to assist the uninsured receive care.

A new investigative report by the Los Angeles Times finds that WellPoint’s foundation has completely failed to meet its promise of spending $30 million to help the uninsured. Rather, the company spent $6.2 million — a paltry 11 percent of what the company promised:

WellPoint’s public records indicate that from 2007 to 2009 the foundation gave less than $6.2 million in grants targeted specifically at helping uninsured Americans get access to coverage and care — barely one-fifth of what was promised and just 11% of the charity’s total giving over the last three years.

“It was just not something that the company really wanted to do,” said one former executive, who, like others interviewed for this story, asked not to be identified out of concern that discussing WellPoint could have adverse career consequences. “So it went by the wayside.”

The Times created a graph that charts WellPoint’s charitable giving since 2007 and showed how little of the insurers’ charitable spending actually went to helping the uninsured:



An investigation by Congress earlier this year found that WellPoint’s Chief Executive Angela F. Braly had a salary of $1.1 million last year and stock options valuing approximately $8.5 million, meaning that the company couldn’t spend anywhere near what it spends on just one of its own employees to help the uninsured it claims to care about.

[mod mom]

1. Well, duh-the money to bribe lawmakers had to come somewhere. Perhaps Susan Bayh

can help make up the difference.

Susan Bayh, a lawyer, drew more than $837,0000 from her work on seven corporate boards last year, as Bloomberg News notes.

She is a director at Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., "which is part of a medical research partnership awarded a $24.7 million federal grant in May after Evan Bayh and his Indiana colleagues in Congress recommended the group to the National Institutes of Health,'' Bloomberg's Timothy Burger reports. "She's on the board of E*Trade Bank, a subsidiary of E*Trade Financial Corp., while her husband sits on the Senate Banking Committee. She is lead director at Emmis Communications Corp., an Indianapolis radio-station operator that published Evan Bayh's 2003 memoir.

-snip

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/08/evan_bayhs_wife_corporate_boar.html

[Vinnie From Indy]

2. It is an awesome thing to behold the willfull ignorance and denial about these companies

Wellpoint and the rest will not play fair with the HCR bill that will pass. Without a public option the will be free to rape and pillage at will. Those folks that believe that this bill will do anything to restrain companies like Wellpoint from trading lives for profit are just as much willfully iognorant as the most die-hard Limbaugh dittohead.

[Cal Carpenter]

7. And amazing that these situations are treated as exceptions

as opposed to being the inevitable result of our current system. That they need to be handled distinctly as though it's a matter of one company breaking some rules or something.

Our system rewards greed and concentrated power, not fairness or philanthropy (in anything other than name, that is). The system doesn't reward working for the good (or even the will) of the people. It's all about the Benjamins baby. Only the Benjamins have a LOT more zeros on them these days.


This rings true in just about every industry. Hell, the way schools are being dealt with right now, they're next.

Until we stop with the outrage at each of these instances of greed and injustice, until we look at the big picture and try to address the system that allows and encourages it, we will never get very far...

[Tansy_Gold]

3. This is why I'm so opposed to the current pending legislation

the alleged "health care reform" package --

While it may provide apparent benefits to some individuals, it addresses virtually NONE of the abuses that led to the current crisis. In that respect it is identical to the financial crisis. Bailouts and extensions of unemployment benefits do not repair the systemic damage done to the economy -- an economy now operating at around 70% of its manufacturing capacity -- by policies that have become sacred cash cows.

I do not wish tragedy on anyone. In less than a month of my friends have lost siblings to sudden illnesses, and there's no calling that back. But I think, in my evil heart of hearts, that some of these greedy pig bastards who live like freakin' kings would serve karma well to be stricken with something that turns their hearts around.


Tansy Gold

[Echo In Light]

4. k/r

[avaistheone1]

5. Surprise. Surprise.

I have had it with these greedy parasitic predatory vulture health insurance vultures.

Damn the health insurance f******, and while you are at it

Support Congressman Alan Grayson's Medicare Buy-in Option

[laughingliberal]

6. +1000

They needed to get this into the reconciliation bill. It would improve the CBO scoring and I, for one, don't give a damn about the President's promises to the hospital corporations and insurance industry. Everyone knows this would save money and cover more people. It was just immoral to fight against something that would have gone so far in ending abuses and helped the people.

[bvar22]

8. Lets make them even RICHER and MORE Powerful!

Great idea!

[avaistheone1]

9. That is what worries me.