Blue Shield CEO Bruce Bodaken "earned" $4.6 million last year

[bemildred]

The quotes around "earned" are mine.

For the first time, California's largest nonprofit health insurer has released the salaries of its 10 highest-paid executives in response to a new state law intended to keep healthcare insurance costs under control.

The top earner at Blue Shield of California was Chief Executive Bruce Bodaken, who made $4.6 million last year — more than four times the salary of his counterpart at the state's largest for-profit insurer, Anthem Blue Cross.

San Francisco-based Blue Shield revealed Bodaken's salary in documents filed with the state's insurance commissioner, who had demanded the information under the law that allows regulators to examine executive salaries and other criteria to determine whether insurance rate increases are "unreasonable."

In its report to the state, Blue Shield said that its 10 highest-paid executives earned more than $14 million total last year. The insurer identified the executives only by number, saying each earned $749,643 to $4,601,226. The top earner was listed as "chief executive officer," Bodaken's title.

http://www.latimes.com/health/healthcare/la-fi-insurer-executive-pay-20110526,0,264582.story

[CBGLuthier]

1. out of OUR pockets on our most basic of human needs

everything for profit is a horrid standard of life.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. k to the r

[NV Whino]

3. Nonprofit?

Oy vey!

[shraby]

4. I don't even know what the use of knowing this information

is...nothing seems to ever change. I'll be willing to bet they even avoid paying taxes on this income.

[Auggie]

8. Maybe the good is that it gets enough people really pissed off

enough to start really listening and enrolled in single-payer.

[exboyfil]

5. For those who think that non profits

are superior to for profit companies. Not to say that I think the typical insurance model works (either for or non-profit). I wonder what the top executives make at the German health insurance companies?

[Atman]

6. He could have "earned" a half a mil and still lived "comfortably" and covered more insurance claims.

I just don't get why the for-profit nature of our health care industry isn't part of the discussion. It is the biggest driver of costs. It's not Doctors' reimbursements, they've gone down every year. It's not fraud, though I don't deny fraud exists. In retail, it's called "shrinkage" or "loss control," and you deal with it. The insurance companies now deal with health care claims as "shrinkage" or "loss control," there is NO INCENTIVE for them to pay out claims. They are in it to make a profit, not to help anyone. They should be the first pillar we knock down, not the Medicare program you've paid into your whole life, but is now about to be pulled out from underneath you. Fuck Ryan and his "plan."

Okay,actually I do get it, from the standpoint of who owns the media and how much advertising dollars they get from Big Pharma, the Insurance Industry, etc. I get that, they're whores. Expensive whores. Escorts to the trough. Whores by any other name.

But why isn't there a Democrat up there saying roughly what I just typed (without the PG13 rating, of course)? Why isn't a there one serious person among a nation of 300,000,000+ willing to stand up and give this speech and address this issue? Unless, of course...they're just as bought and paid for as the media.

*sigh*

Never mind.

[postulater]

7. That's 153,374 office visit copays at $30 each.

That's 420 people each day whose copays could be paid with that.

[bemildred]

9. Apparently, keeping health care "costs"(*) under control is "hard work", as Mr Bush put it.

(*) -- Guess what, health care "costs" are the same thing as health care itself, pretty much.