Is California poised to lead the nation?
Has outrage peaked?
The backdrop: juxtapose the routine brutality inflicted on you and me by the predatory insurance industry against the soaring fortunes of for-profit insurance companies.
Are the American people finally ready to do battle with these forces of evil?
This is what's happening in California.
Rising medical costs are sparking efforts to cap profits of California's health insurers in the same way that surging gasoline prices are fueling proposals for a windfall oil profit tax.
Two bills in Sacramento seek to limit insurers' profits as well as cap consumers' out-of-pocket payments for medical treatment. The state Department of Insurance has a separate plan to limit profits.
http://www.latimes.com/...
Uh-oh. Did someone say
limit profits?
Such proposals, if enacted, could result in the nation's most sweeping financial reform of for-profit health plans. Other states, including Connecticut and New York, regulate how much health plans can charge in premiums, and Minnesota allows health maintenance organizations to be run only by nonprofit groups.
The California proposals may not survive industry and political opposition. Health insurers such as Blue Cross of California say these moves would kill innovation and limit the types of insurance California residents can buy. Some experts say profits are not a major factor in rising health costs.
This is how depraved our system has become.
My friend the oncologist spends hours on the telephone pleading with an insurance company clerk to approve an MRI or chemotherapy treatment for a desperately ill patient. In America, this is how doctors spend their time.
Then you overlay this everyday reality of insurance company denials against soaring profits and obscene executive compensation. Something is terribly wrong.
Is information like this making some Americans very angry? And folks, this is old stuff--from 2001. It's far worse now.
How well do for-profit plans value their executives?
Last year, the highest-paid executives at 10 of the nation's largest for-profit health plans received an average compensation, including salary, bonuses, life insurance, retirement plans, and other compensation -- but not unexercised stock options -- of $11.7 million, with the highest-paid executive, William W. McGuire of UnitedHealth Group, making $54.1 million.
The report is from Families USA, which is critical of the compensation levels. The organization extracted its data from information that the companies submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Highest compensation package, exclusive of unexercised stock options
NAME TITLE COMPANY COMPENSATION
William W. McGuire CEO UnitedHealth Group $54,129,501
Wilson H. Taylor Retired chairman Cigna $24,741,578
Ronald Williams Executive VP, large group businesses WellPoint Health Networks $13,205,631
William Donaldson Chairman Aetna U.S. Healthcare $12,650,393
Leonard Schaeffer Chairman & CEO WellPoint Health Networks $11,127,465
H. Edward Hanway Chairman & CEO Cigna $9,478,634
D. Mark Weinberg Executive VP WellPoint Health Networks $8,957,410
Richard Huber Ex-chairman, CEO, president Aetna U.S. Healthcare $6,988,987
William Pastore President, Cigna HealthCare Cigna $6,779,028
Thomas Jones President, retirement and investment services Cigna $6,055,314
http://www.managedcaremag.com/...
And stories like this . . .
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Connecticut on Wednesday joined a shareholder lawsuit accusing UnitedHealth Group Inc. of manipulating stock options to enrich Chief Executive William McGuire and other top officials.
Richard Blumenthal, the state's attorney general, joined the lawsuit on behalf of Connecticut's $23 billion pension fund, which owns 381,000 UnitedHealth shares and is overseen by state Treasurer Denise Nappier.
. . .Mississippi's and Ohio's pension funds are also suing UnitedHealth, and the states are seeking lead plaintiff status, Blumenthal said.
The Ohio funds sued Minneapolis-based UnitedHealth, the largest U.S. health insurer by market value, on May 22 in U.S. District Court in Minnesota.
. . .The lawsuit accuses UnitedHealth board members of allowing the "backdating" of stock options.
It said this manipulation allowed McGuire to improperly amass $1.2 billion from stock options, and caused UnitedHealth to overstate earnings and issue false financial statements since at least 1997.
"McGuire's greed was gargantuan," Blumenthal said. "Gaming stock options to inflate executive pay violates the law's letter, as well as its spirit."
According to the lawsuit, the board let McGuire set the price of options retroactively, on days when share prices were low. This allowed UnitedHealth to guarantee executives maximum profits at shareholders' expense, the lawsuit said.
More than two dozen companies have in recent weeks disclosed criminal, regulatory or internal probes into possible options backdating.
UnitedHealth faces several government probes related to stock options, and has said it may restate earnings by as much as $286 million.
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/...
Back to California. Has the Insurance commissioner been reading Daily Kos?
As California goes . . .so goes the nation?
But the proposals underscore a growing backlash against the health insurance industry from consumer advocates and lawmakers who say insurers must absorb a greater share of rising costs. The issue also is renewing calls for a government-sponsored healthcare system.
Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi held a meeting in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday to discuss his proposal to limit insurers' profits.
"The public is saying, 'Enough already,' " Garamendi said before Thursday's meeting. "Health insurance today is not about healthcare. It is about quarterly earnings for Wall Street's benefits."
The focus on insurers' profits represents a shift in the healthcare debate in California. For more than a decade it revolved around how the sick were treated, what illnesses should be covered and what types of specialists patients should have access to, among other things.
Meanwhile. . .some insurers, including UnitedHealth are urging enrollees to spilt their pills in order to control skyrocketing healthcare costs!
Some of the country's largest health insurers are encouraging patients to save money by splitting their pills in half.
By purchasing a higher dose and slicing the pills into two parts, patients also cut their co-payments in half. But this practice, long used by uninsured people and Medicare patients before the program had a drug benefit, is as controversial as it is low tech.
. . .But, with such companies as UnitedHealth Group, the nation's second-largest health insurer, promoting a Half Tablet Program, the practice has received a powerful endorsement.
"As consumers are having to become better educated and are picking up a bigger share of their costs, this may be in their best interest," said UnitedHealth spokesman Tyler Mason.
UnitedHealth is taking advantage of the fact that drug manufacturers typically charge the same amount for, say, 10-milligram and 20-milligram doses of the same medication.
http://www.shns.com/...
Dear friends, I repeat, the system is not broken it has sunk to a level of abject depravity.