Here's why health insurance is so expensive

[sixmile]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/20/cigna-gives-1109-million_n_506974.html

Cigna Gives $110.9 Million Compensation Package To Ex-CEO
'The insurance giant Cigna last year gave compensation packages worth more than $120 million to two executives who left the company, according to a filing with the SEC on Friday.

The vast majority of that total went to former chairman and CEO H. Edward Hanway who left his post with a retirement package worth $110.9 million -- which included $18.8 million in executive compensation for 2009, as well as a healthy pension plan, deferred compensation and stock options.

With more than $19 billion in revenues reported in 2008, Cigna remains one of the most profitable insurers in the country. Though, unlike some of its competitors, it does not appear to have raised premiums on customers in an effort to improve somewhat sagging recent profits.'

more at link



Little piggies...

[Hannah Bell]

1. kr

[Go2Peace]

23. No, it is greed throughtout, not just the CEOs

How about Dr's who charge $350/Hr when you see a NURSE? How about the Psychologist who charges $125 for a 15 minute consultation? How about the Hospital, that keeps you when they should let you go, to keep the room full?

Not, our system is full of greed and waste and while the CEO's are abhorent, they are only a reflection of what happened when the "market economy" eclipsed the Hippocratic Oath. The sooner we realize that the sooner we actually get to fixing the real issues.

[havocmom]

2. Remind me to tell you about threatening to camp in CIGNA lobby

20 years ago

With that threat (and I had the means to do it, the equipment lined up and friends in the press to cover it) I FINALLY got them to OK the surgery I needed to save my hand.

[RKP5637]

3. I REALLY feel like I live in an ever so corrupt country stacked against the

majority of the citizens, anymore.

[robinblue]

7. I feel the same way.

[bbgrunt]

4. not to mention the $ they spend on lobbying.

[L0oniX]

10. +¹

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

5. Excessive, but still a drop in the ocean.

That's a big payout, but it has nothing to do with why health insurance is so expensive. That figure does not even add up to a rounding error.

[L0oniX]

9. "nothing to do with" yea right ...maybe in bizzarro world.

Apologist for the health insurance industry much? Management costs are over 30% and you say "it has nothing to do with why health insurance is so expensive". pffft

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

11. Basic math too hard? The payout is a miniscule percentage of revenue.

On what planet is blowing some utterly trivial percentage of annual revenue on a payout going to materially alter the cost of business? It is completely below the noise floor of natural year-to-year variation in revenues. Even if they passed it on to their customers, no one would notice.

To put it in terms people bad at math can understand, would spending an extra 25 cents per day substantially alter the finances of the average person? Oh noes!

There are plenty of real things to worry about, no need invent them because of elementary innumeracy. It just gives ammo to those that would paint us as members of the clueless ignorati.

[MajorChode]

12. Basic logic will score you no points here...

Only facts that support the grand progressive agenda are allowed. Otherwise you will be labeled as an enabler of the regressive.

[L0oniX]

18. He probably works for the insurance industry.

[MajorChode]

22. Yes, I have no doubt

I'm quite sure he's getting paid by an insurance company to post on DU just to throw a monkey wrench into the works. Now I'm starting to think insurance companies had something to do with 9/11 also. He's just the sort. I heard insurance companies were behind Hitler's rise to fame, and I have it on good evidence that those insurance company bastards were behind the creation of Lucky Charms which were made solely to denigrate Irish Americans and keep them oppressed with those fucking Leprechaun commercials. It's already been proven conclusively that insurance companies were behind the last 4 wars at least and probably most of the others. You just can't trust anyone these days, nor is there any reason to do otherwise.

[L0oniX]

17. You used the word "nothing". English too hard?

[NNN0LHI]

13. L0oniX my employer is self-insured and my health care costs are still going up

So its got to be more than just overpaid CEOs causing this.

Don

[kenny blankenship]

14. Could it be the ravenous pursuit of ever higher profits at all levels of the system?

As typified by, but not exhausted by, obscene executive "compensation"?

For profit hospital corporations
(driving up the price of services and procedures for their benefit-the shareholders too, not just the executives)

For profit insurance corporations
(driving up the prices of everything they touch, because they're middlemen and get paid a cut of the total.)

Pharmaceutical companies allowed to charge ruinous prices here that they can't get away with in other parts of the world?
(driving up the prices of drugs.)

All such large publicly traded for-profit corporations MUST HAVE higher profits each year or else their share price declines and then their credit-worthiness crumbles with it. Where does this higher profit come from each year? Out of YOU. Higher and higher it all goes, or else it busts - until it busts.

Or until we wake the hell up FINALLY and do what every developed nation with a highly rated health care system does and take profits out of the center of our healthcare delivery.

[NNN0LHI]

15. Could be a lot of different factors?

I just don't believe it is one thing.

Don

[kenny blankenship]

16. You make a really persuasive case.

[L0oniX]

19. The brakes need to start some where and CEO bonuses would be a good start.

After that we can go after GE. Have you had an MRI lately? I have to wonder how they divide up the cost of the machines over what period of time for each victim/client. How long after the machines are paid for do they continue to charge as if they were still making payments? Of course then there's the drug dealers who always do what they can to advertise the shit and add the ad cost to the drugs. Oh yea and all the lobbying. Plenty of places to cut costs. Cutting CEO bonus pay is something that would get a lot of attention though cause they will cry about it a lot.

[kenny blankenship]

21. Japan - MRI costs $98

in 2008
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/interviews/ikegami.html#1

Govt. Ministry flat out tells dpctors and hospitals what it can cost, along with every thing else- costs of medicine, services, procedures. In Japan they control costs by absolutely controlling price by fiat. The state has an interest in seeing to the health of its people - something everyone else in the world seems to understand but Americans. Arrangements like this will tend to limit the executives' pay as a natural consequence. Without a rich stream of fat profits to skim, you can't possibly justify a big executive salary or bonuses to a board of directors. And speaking of the corporate structure of the insurance business - over there everyone belongs to non-profit health associations.
Why would you belong to a for-profit insurance corporation in the first place? SO they can get rich off of taking your premiums jacking them up year after year and then denying you care when you finally need it? Here, they are very entrenched - they characterize and dominate the system. And so to dislodge them will take direct govt. action - either nationalization or setting up a competing non-profit govt. health service people can join without any apologies to the blood sucker insurance CEOs and shareholders.

Of course, we can cut executive "compensation" in industries that are going cap in hand to the govt. for bailouts but not until then - not directly. This Mandatory Insurance bill is designed to forestall that moment as long as possible - perhaps forever.

[L0oniX]

24. +1

[OhioChick]

6. K&R n/t

[Vinca]

8. So maybe the guy can cure cancer by the laying on of hands.

:sarcasm:

[thotzRthingz]

20. only $110-million? did you know that *McGuire* got $1.1-billion (yes, with a "B") in 2006?

KNOW YOUR SCUMBAGS!

This is William W. McGuire. He was the head of United Healthcare Group, one of the largest health insurers in the U.S., from 1991 to 2006. He had to step down due to his involvement in a stock options scandal.

His punishment?

A $1.1 billion dollar compensation package, the then-largest golden parachute in the history of corporate America.

<...snip...>

- source: http://www.farleftside.com/scumbag/scumbag-index.html

I'm not belittling the OP ... this sort of stuff is actually sickening, isn't it?! :mad:

[moobu2]

25. The US has the best healthcare system in the world

if you're a CEO of an insurance company.