Who Wants to Vomit?
It’s that time of year again where we hear how much CEOs are making. You can find the whole article here but here are a few of my favorites:
Anthem CEO Gail Boudreaux, $14,184,276
Gail Boudreaux is the CEO of Anthem, which offers health insurance under the Blue Cross and Blue Shield brand in 14 states. Boudreaux assumed the post at Anthem in November 2017. Prior to that, she served as the CEO of insurer UnitedHealthcare.
In January, Anthem let investors know it planned to launch its own pharmacy benefit manager ahead of schedule, earning praise from analysts.
“CEO Gail Boudreaux is clearly on a roll,” Leerink analyst Ana Gupte wrote in a January note.
(My thoughts: sure which health insurance was affordable. It’s nice they get to gouge patients with the premium and the PBM)
Humana CEO Bruce Broussard, $16,312,517
Bruce Broussard is the CEO of Louisville, Kentucky-based health insurer Humana, which specializes in Medicare Advantage health plans for the elderly. He joined the company in 2011 and became CEO in 2013.
In 2018, Humana was at the heart of speculation about whether the insurer was going to work more closely with retailers like Walgreens or Walmart. Humana has had close relationships with both companies.
Humana’s market cap: $37 billion
(My thoughts: Boy, it’s amazing how these insurers suffered with the Affordable Care Act. Not.)
UnitedHealth Group CEO David Wichmann, $18,107,356
David Wichmann was named CEO of UnitedHealth Group in 2017, after working at the health insurer since 1998. His previous roles included president of UnitedHealth, and UnitedHealth CFO.
UnitedHealth is the biggest US health insurer, and runs clinics and a pharmacy benefits manager. The company also has technology and consulting operations.
UnitedHealth’s market cap: $212 billion
I can’t even stomach the rest of this. Feel free to leave me your thoughts.
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Assuming one agrees that health insurance is a necessary evil, there is only one entity with the authority to prevent the greedy capitalist profiteering that occurs by private health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacy benefit managers, healthcare systems and durable medical supply companies etc. That authority is the government.
Of course the greedy profiteers do their best to corrupt the government (quite effectively in many instances). What to do? As citizens in the binary voting booth- do we pull the level for the party that is “pro-business” or “pro-consumer”? Personally, I dislike the former more than the latter.
Usually this kind of post gets sent to me with a comment like “Look what these CEO’s make! This is why our premiums are so high!” While I think the CEO’s are wildly overpaid, in reality this is a tiny portion of the insurance company finances. I’m actually more ticked off that the CEO’s either have PBM’s or are starting a PBM, which is much more of a nuisance for physicians and often a rip-off of patients.
So to me these kinds of articles often cause people to take their eye off the ball. These CEO salaries, while pretty outrageous, are not why medical care is expensive.
CEO of General Motors, Mary Barra’s compensation was 22 million dollars last year.
J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Dimon made 29.5 million in 20178.
The healthcare CEOs compensation is not outrageous compared to other industries- but it’s all outrageous imo.
The biggest difference imo is that healthcare should be different because it isn’t an optional purchase. The focus should be on what patients need, not on how much they can pay. I know that sounds socialist/communist but I do lump healthcare in with other services that government does (or should) provide for all- including law enforcement, national defense, etc.