Health care CEO: Can you spare some more stock options?

Original Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ybenjamin/detail??blogid=150&entry_id=46399

Poor little insurance company people... "We're people too", and we have feelings and we have families and jobs and feelings and so on and so forth.

Congratulations to the PR agencies and how they managed to humanize an industry that is based on profit and greed. Washington DC PR operatives deserve every dollar they get - turning an insurance clerk into the picture of an oppressed human being. Take advantage of their fear because they too might loose their jobs.

Now it's a crusade against workers in the insurance industry. Add another myth to the long list of tactics of the insurance industry.

Never mind that we ignore the salaries of the poor suffering CEOs.

Insurance Company & CEOs With 2007 Total CEO Compensation

Aetna Ronald A. Williams: $23,045,834
Cigna H. Edward Hanway: $25,839,777
Coventry Dale B. Wolf : $14,869,823
Health Net Jay M. Gellert: $3,686,230
Humana Michael McCallister: $10,312,557
U.Health Grp Stephen J. Hemsley: $13,164,529
WellPoint Angela Braly (2007): $9,094,271

Insurance Company & CEOs With 2008 Total CEO Compensation

Aetna, Ronald A. Williams: $24,300,112
Cigna, H. Edward Hanway: $12,236,740
Coventry, Dale Wolf: $9,047,469
Health Net, Jay Gellert: $4,425,355
Humana, Michael McCallister: $4,764,309
U. Health Group, Stephen J. Hemsley: $3,241,042
Wellpoint, Angela Braly: $9,844,212

Never mind that the stock options of health care CEOs who make their money on denying coverage is pathetically immoral. The current CEO of United Health, Steven Hemsley has $744,000,000.00 in stock options. That's over double the $333M Mega Millions Lotto prize tonight! Profits have increased 428% from 2000-2007 at United Health. Profits that come from denying benefits, canceling coverage and refusing to pay for "pre-existing conditions".

Congratulations to the Lewin Group that is owned by United Health Care for being a non-partisan think tank. Tell people lies. Spread fear and gossip --- Death panels, the end of Medicare, canceling veterans' care, Hitler-talk, race wars, mandatory abortions... Fear and doom! Let's call a spade a shovel.

The health care PR flacks want to make it a battle between the poor disheveled health care clerk versus the poor card carrying SEIU janitor. Victim against victim; the poor against the poor; the community of Lexington, Kentucky versus the Bronx in New York; the obese diabetic on Medicare and Social Security screaming against the needs of the uninsured single mother with breast cancer.

Did you see the video of a guy carrying a big sign that said, "KEEP YOUR GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE!!!" The flacks at Freedom Works have created astroturf that's better than a bot army! It's hugely appropriate that Freedom Works is led by a certain Dick Armey.

That is truly social engineering at it's finest!!! Use people's fear against themselves.

Look at the shiny objects! Poor people battling it out for the crumbs. How very sad!

The battle for insurance reform is a battle for the lives of people - real people with children, homes, friends and families.

"Hmmm... must create grassroots movement" --- let's get our lobbyist America's Health Insurance Plans to ask 50,000 insurance company employees to contact congressmen through letters, phone calls or visits to town hall meetings. Astroturf is definitely easier than grassroots movements.

California insurer Anthem Blue Cross sent an e-mail to its customers saying the legislation currently under consideration "does not meet our definition of responsible and sustainable reform" and "would likely have a significant negative impact on our partners and customers."

Anthem Blue Cross, a subsidiary of WellPoint, asks its customers to contact their congressional representatives "to get health care done - and done right." It also asks them to visit their Web site.

Anthem's e-mail says health care reform in its current state could cause tens of millions of Americans to lose their private coverage and end up in a government-run plan, limit customers' choices of the products they can purchase and how they can purchase health coverage, and could increase premiums.

Here's the rogue gallery of health care CEOs and how much they make.

Finally if you have time, take a look at Brave New Films new movie, "SICK FOR PROFIT".

It's not about the insurance company clerk's job. It's about providing the most basic human right - your health, our health, the country's health and future.