Health insurance corporate CEOs rake in millions while the masses can barely afford premiums

Sunday, June 01, 2014
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Tags: health insurance, CEO salaries, medical costs

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(NaturalNews) One of the consequences of Obamacare is that health insurance company profitability is soaring, causing corporate CEOs of health insurance companies to pocket millions of dollars in annual salaries and bonuses. This is what happens when a government colludes with private industry to force the entire population to purchase a for-profit product that many don't want (or need). Sales skyrocket and profits head for the stratosphere.

That's why CEOs of the nation's largest health insurance companies are raking in record salaries right now, earning as much as $90,000 per day:

Mark Bertolini, CEO of Aetna: $30.7 million ($90,029 per day)
(That's a 131 percent increase over his 2012 compensation.)

Joseph Swedish, CEO of Wellpoint: $17.0 million ($49,853 per day)

Michael Neidorff, CEO of Centene: $14.5 million ($42,560 per day)

David Cordani, CEO of Cigna: $13.5 million ($39,589 per day)

Stephen Hemsley, CEO of UnitedHealth: $12.1 million ($35,484 per day)

Bruce Broussard, CEO of Humana: $8.8 million ($25,807 per day)

It begs the question: Is any corporate executive really worth $90,000 per day? That's nearly three times the average annual salary of a U.S. worker... and the CEO earns this every day! What contribution could one human being possibly make to a company that could justify this?

Health insurance corporate CEOs make out like bandits while Americans head toward bankruptcy

If you're wondering where all this money is coming from, it's coming out of the pockets of all the people who are forced to buy health insurance. And the trend is only getting worse as health insurance premiums have shot skyward under Obamacare for all but the lowest-income subsidized enrollees. As more and more middle-class workers and families are rudely discovering, health insurance is flatly unaffordable. It's driving American families, small businesses and even cities and towns into bankruptcy.

Forcing Americans to buy the product didn't make the product any cheaper. In fact, prices shot through the roof even while insurance companies increased their health care payment denials for cancer patients, leaving many patients out in the cold, dying from disease even though they had paid their premiums.

Why a single-payer system is not the answer

Many who supported Obamacare in the first place are now highlighting these corporate CEO salaries as justification for shifting to a national "single payer" health care system that completely removes for-profit companies from the equation. A government-run health care system, they say, would be more affordable and would eliminate the profit-taking of insurance companies.

But they forget the example of the VA hospital system: the perfect model of government-run health care and a system steeped in corruption and criminality. Under the VA system, thousands of U.S. veterans were denied desperately-needed health care services by being put on secret waiting lists kept off the books. For many veterans, the wait time to see a doctor -- even for a serious health emergency -- exceeded 100 days.

As the NY Daily News reports: (1)

At least 1,700 veterans were victims of apparently rigged lists that concealed their wait times for appointments at the Phoenix VA hospital, according to report Wednesday that hiked calls for the VA secretary to resign. The 35-page report focused on allegations of mismanagement and cooking the books at the troubled Phoenix VA hospital. It comes after years of similar government reports of chronically long wait times for vets around the country. Further, in dissecting the cases of 226 vets, the watchdog found that their average actual wait was 115 days even though the hospital's records claimed they waited an average of 24 days for their first primary care appointment. The investigation began after it was alleged that more than 40 vets died while waiting for appointments in Phoenix.

A national, government-run health care system would see this kind of corruption and criminality expanded to every hospital nationwide. While the White House and mainstream media would claim Americans are receiving first-rate health care services, the ugly truth would be long wait times, denied medical services and nationwide deaths while people are waiting to see the doctor.

The real solution: End collusion between government and Big Pharma; legalize healing

The real solution to skyrocketing health care costs is to change the course of the entire nation on issues of health, medicine and nutrition. No nation can ever afford to keep paying for a population that's increasingly sick and diseased. No pharmaceutical has ever prevented or cured any chronic disease. And doctors aren't even trained in how to teach patients healthy living habits based on nutrition, exercise, sensible sunshine exposure and avoidance of toxins.

The real way to lower health care costs is to teach healthy living habits to the population. If government and media promoted vitamin D, fresh foods and avoidance of chemicals rather than pushing more drugs, pesticides and vaccines for everything under the sun, health care costs would plummet.

That is, of course, exactly why such strategies are never pursued: the health care industry is a for-profit industry, and hospital beds need to be filled! Drugs need to be sold. Clinics need repeat business. Nearly 25% of the entire U.S. economy depends wholly on the continuation of sickness and disease.

That's why children are taught to eat sugary junk food and adults are taught to take a pill instead of taking charge of their health. That's why health insurance usually doesn't cover disease prevention services like chiropractic care, acupuncture or nutritional coaching. The system doesn't want you to be healthy; it wants you to be a source of never-ending profit.

After all, these companies have to cough up as much as $90,000 a day just to pay their own CEOs. Do you honestly think they could collect that much money from a population in a state of optimum health?

Sources for this article include:
(1) http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/vet...