Your email address is safe with us. View our Privacy policy.
Author Bio:
Before starting his popular political column for the New York Observer, Joe Conason worked as editor-at-large for Conde Nast's Details magazine. ...
Read more about Joe Conason.
Before starting his popular political column for the New York Observer, Joe Conason worked as editor-at-large for Conde Nast's Details magazine. ...
Read more about Joe Conason.
Playing Monopoly With America's Health
Joe Conason
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 SEC 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.
But these companies actually exercise near monopolistic control of local insurance markets, which allows them to drive up costs and reduce access. That is the assessment of the American Medical Association, which has sponsored a series of large-scale studies of insurance markets across the country to determine whether excessive market power affects doctors and hospitals. The very notion of a competitive market and consumer choice is a sick joke in most American cities and towns, where a single health insurer predominates.
Those AMA findings amplified earlier studies dating back to 1995, which even then showed a clear trend toward concentration that has only grown worse. Over the past five years, the largest insurers have followed an imperial strategy of growth through merger and acquisition.
The buying binge has led to bloat, with those two companies now covering more than 67 million individuals, or 36 percent of the total American insurance market. That is more than double the market share controlled by the two largest insurers, Aetna and United, in 2000.
If the insurance executives get their way, this damaging consolidation will continue unchecked. When Angela Braly isn't complaining about potential competition from a public option provided by government, she tells shareholders that acquisition of smaller firms will continue to serve as "one of the key drivers of WellPoint's future growth."
The other significant "driver" of profitable growth for the insurance monopolies is the federally subsidized Medicare Advantage program, which overpays them by billions of dollars annually to compete with the traditional, government-run Medicare system. Originally billed as a way to reduce the cost of Medicare, that program has accomplished little except to improve the bottom line for the private insurers -- and underwrite the excessive compensation of the Bralys and Hemsleys of the industry.
They blatantly curtail competition, lobby for federal subsidies, boost premiums, ration care and cut access, while insisting that a public option would cause all those terrible consequences. Obviously, they believe that the rest of us are chumps. And they may well be right.
========
Joe Conason writes for the New York Observer (www.observer.com). To find out more about Joe Conason, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
Copyright 2009 Creators Syndicate Inc.
This news arrived on: 10/22/2009
Printer Friendly Version | Send this page to a friend | Post Comment
Rate This Story:
Great - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - Bad
Posted Comments:
10-24-2009 21:57
Redneck Again wrote:
Towed the line?
Casey 42---- JCE just told you "towed to where?" You must have educated in one of those schools! If you havn't heard of that term!
10-24-2009 21:52
Redneck Again wrote:
option?
Casey 42----you are right on the subject of an option to private insurance! As I said, the fact that they buy many millions of advertising, means that their depredations never get the light of day! We need another option! But----You tell me why the only options offered, mandate automatic withdrawl of (how much?) from OUR bank accounts! No mention of even if it's an equal amount! Then compulsory insurance!! Even if we can't afford it, we have no choice! Even WHEN (not if) WE WASPS, are rationed, WE still pay--but get no healthcare!!! Same as now if we decide WE can't afford it! (I havn't had insurance for at least 12 years, and when I had it, it didn't pay!!! So---I OPTED NOT TO PAY them)I pay my doctor cash--or I don't go! A choice not allowed in any of the bills! All BS aside-------- It looks to me like these bills are free to minoritys, and payed for by us!! Since it's guaranteed to minoritys and rationed to us, YOU show me where it's good for me!! Other than MAYBE lowering rates by competition!
10-24-2009 21:13
JCE wrote:
The primary purpose of the government is to do for the people what must be done, and that the people can't do for themselves in their individual or collective capacities. That also means to allow them the means to do for themselves, not to take it from them. Making legislation is secondary to this. Ensuring that the legislation if effect, and any new ones that come out, are in line with both the constitution, and what is best for the people IS their number one concern. What we have is a congress who views their two main concerns as doing what the oligarchs require of them, and getting reelected again. Schools and teachers have always existed as babysitters to teach the kids to be good little consumers, and little supporters of the powers that be. To do this, you can't teach them to use their brains or they would stop being good little consumers when they grow up.
I for one would like to know why the overwhelming majority of the republicans and conservatives support the insurance companies having a monopoly, being able to be exempt from any price setting, and being able to be death panels, and all the while claiming to be against those things in principle.
I for one would like to know why the overwhelming majority of the republicans and conservatives support the insurance companies having a monopoly, being able to be exempt from any price setting, and being able to be death panels, and all the while claiming to be against those things in principle.
10-24-2009 12:57
casey42 wrote:
Hey redneck, where are the teachers towing the line to? Are they using a tow truck? If you know so much how come you show so little?
This article was a great advertisement for public option, it shows how great the need for an alternative to private insurance is.
This article was a great advertisement for public option, it shows how great the need for an alternative to private insurance is.
10-24-2009 10:51
JDB wrote:
Which brings us back .......
to the primary responsibility of government which is to make and enforce laws. The problem has been that lobbyists have "bribed" congressional representatives and there is nothing but compromise on just about every law enforcement issue you care to name. Until we have a complete separation of government and business and government enforces the laws it makes, government will continue to exercise a conflict of interest and that will continue the mess we currently have. This is no CHANGE, it is just more of the same because they don't ENFORCE the laws of the land!
Comment archive | Comment FAQ's
 |
 |
|
View Joe Conason ezine stories by date or visit the complete archive |
The ArcaMax Politics channel is one of 70 content categories offered by ArcaMax Publishing on this ... |
VideoSquares.com
