Joe Conason Must Read: An Obscene Protest

[flpoljunkie]

An Obscene Protest
By Joe Conason

October 20, 2009

Popular disgust over the fat premiums that financial executives bestow upon themselves is burgeoning, and rightly so. Those Wall Street piggy banks are filling up with billions upon billions of government-subsidized dollars.

But anyone infuriated by the grossly inflated compensation of the masters of finance should check out the incredible earnings of the top executives in the health insurance business. They’re among the most highly paid suits in the country—not owing to any skill in providing health care, which they don’t do, but because they have succeeded in denying care, quashing competition, driving up costs and winning federal subsidies for their companies.

Last year WellPoint, the country’s largest health insurer, paid chief executive Angela Braly just under $10 million in salary, options and bonuses, along with the use of a private jet for herself and her family. That included a raise of about $750,000 over her 2007 salary. United Health Care, the second largest, paid CEO Stephen J. Hemsley only $3.2 million last year, but in 2007 he took home $13.2 million. His biggest bonanza got away when he was forced by the Securities and Exchange Commission to surrender $190 million in falsely backdated stock options, but that was nothing compared with the nearly $1 billion in options that his predecessor was required to disgorge. The S.E.C. declined to prosecute anyone for those frauds. Meanwhile, the CEO of Aetna, Ronald Williams, earned $23 million in 2008, and the CEO of CIGNA, Edward Hanway, brought home a total of $120 million over the past five years, plus nearly $29 million in stock options.

Why are these insurance executives paid such obscene amounts? They might explain that they have improved the processing of claims and managing of risk—happy euphemisms for the notorious corporate practices of denying care wherever possible--or they might insist that their huge salaries reflect their challenging roles in a highly competitive marketplace.

more...

http://www.observer.com/2009/politics/obscene-protest

[snagglepuss]

1. K and R

[Fridays Child]

2. Love Joe Conason!

[bvar22]

3. worth a read and a recommend....

also a kick.
:dem:


Why is The Democratic Party working so hard to keep these vultures in business?