In recent years, while we have experienced an acute shortage of primary health care doctors as well as nurses and dentists, we are paying for a huge increase in health care bureaucrats and bill collectors. Over the last three decades, the number of administrative personnel has grown by 25 times the numbers of physicians. Not surprisingly, while health care costs are soaring, so are the profits of private health insurance companies. From 2003 to 2007, the combined profits of the nation's major health insurance companies increased by 170 percent. And, while more and more Americans are losing their jobs and health insurance, the top executives in the industry are receiving lavish compensation packages. It's not just William McGuire, the former head of United Health, who several years ago accumulated stock options worth an estimated $1.6 billion or Cigna CEO Edward Hanway who made more than $120 million in the last five years. The reality is that CEO compensation for the top seven health insurance companies now averages $14.2 million. (Emphasis added.)
If your blood ain't boiling yet...
1 comment:
This is an outrage. No wonder health care costs are soaring - we're paying for those fat bonuses being collected by the CEO's of the insurance companies while being denied care we need.
I'm constantly befuddled as to why people haven't taken to marching in the streets demanding an end to this sort of thing. Health care is a human right, not a perk or a privilege of the few.
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