I was just checking out Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog!, when I came across this post that discusses the obscene salaries of health insurance executives:
The salaries of the highest paid health insurance CEOs:
* Ron Williams – Aetna – Total Compensation: $24,300,112.
* H. Edward Hanway – CIGNA – Total Compensation: $12,236,740.
* Angela Braly – WellPoint – Total Compensation: $9,844,212.
* Dale Wolf – Coventry Health Care – Total Compensation: $9,047,469.
* Michael Neidorff – Centene – Total Compensation: $8,774,483.
* James Carlson – AMERIGROUP – Total Compensation: $5,292,546.
* Michael McCallister – Humana – Total Compensation: $4,764,309.
* Jay Gellert – Health Net – Total Compensation: $4,425,355.
* Richard Barasch – Universal American – Total Compensation: $3,503,702.
* Stephen Hemsley – UnitedHealth Group – Total Compensation: $3,241,042.
What would happen if we all stopped paying our premiums?
Really. Does anyone have any idea?
girldujour.wordpress.com 
Absolutely! The trouble is, you can’t usually get 20 different people in a room to agree what day of the week it is, never mind on concerted action of any kind from many millions of individuals spread across America. Hence the need for so much hype and expense at election times.
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Hi I think this is a fantastic blog, keep up the good work…
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If you don’t pay your premiums you will be granted the inalienable American right to die in pain in front of the hospital that won’t treat you.
(Note that under American law an emergency room does not have to treat you, they are only obligated to ‘stabilize’ you before kicking you out.)
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With these obscene salaries and compensation packages, it is no wonder our healthcare system is in the dumps. Bear in mind that these companies manufacture nothing other than exotic insurance policies which are good only until you need it. Same way the government created them, the government should blow them away. We need to go in another direction!
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I am amazed each time I see the salaries of insurance companies of CEOs posted. I mean it’s really outrageous.
I also just learned that JK Rowling is the first author in the history of the world to amass wealth of over $1 billion from her creative work. That’s just crazy, isn’t it? I mean a room full of monkeys with typewriters could eventually come up with a Harry Potter for far less than $1 billion, right?
When can we get around to fixing JK Rowling’s salary, because clearly that should be a target for us, too, given that we’re all so obviously qualified to gauge the value of any person’s contribution.
We’re certainly better qualified than any MARKET to make this determination, and we probably ought to set up a government office to do it. We are pointedly more intelligent about setting reasonable prices for leadership and creativity than any MARKET.
I think that insane JK Rowling should be next. $1 billion is just too much for society to pay for a few dimestore novels.
Either that, or we could just expect government to write a few more books for summer reading.
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Arnings –
Rowling’s books are not a necessity of life. Nobody’s health or well-being or life or bank account depends on reading or not reading her work.
Health care, via health insurance unfortunately, is a necessity. The insurance companies and the executives of the industry are profiting from sickness, suffering, pain, and misery, and to make a profit they deliberate deny people the coverage that people paid for.
You’re comparing honest people with amoral thieves who deliberately set out to hurt people in order to line their own pockets.
Putting ‘market’ in capital letters doesn’t make your argument valid or correct. And you in fact contradict yourself in your effort at sarcasm. If the ‘market’ is such a good and desirable arbiter, then you cannot criticize Rowling’s income. It was honestly earned, whereas insurance executives’ pay is not earned honestly, morally, or ethically. You can’t have it both ways.
To make people’s health subject to the ‘market’ you esteem so highly is wrong. The results are not an efficient system, but a brutal death-dealing system that enriches a few at the expense of the many. The ‘market’ would let people die in the street in front of the hospital because they lacked the price of admission.
Your ‘markets’ have the intelligence and morality of the Inquisition. Perhaps we might say the same of you.
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We don’t have to stop paying premiums – but don’t pay them to the insurance industry. PAY THEM DIRECTLY TO THE HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY – directly support the local hospitals, doctor offices, diagnostic centers, etc.
There will be plenty of medical care to distribute then.
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Seems worth pointing out that all of these add up to $38 million per year. Which is 0.0015% of all heath care costs, or about $0.13 per person in the United States.
They could be 100 times larger and not move the needle of health care costs.
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Actually, Bryce, the figures above add up to $85,429,970.
I’m not sure if there is any validity to the other statistics that you offer since you weren’t even able to add numbers that were right in front of you.
But, really, what’s your point?
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