Healthcare Facts - Financials

Among the most important facts to properly frame the debate about whether health care should be reformed or not are the amount of profit being taken by companies throughout the health care system. The company that I work for happens to be non-profit, although as a matter of full disclosure, we have a for profit insurance company who is a subsidiary. Lets look at the most recent quarters net income for some of the largest health insurance companies. To put this in context, every dollar of profit for a health insurance company comes from spending less on helping people than they have paid you for that help. So in essence, the state fiduciary responsibility of a helath insurance company is to extract as much from its customers while spending as little as possible on keeping them healthy. The figures... Remember that these are only for 1/4 of the year:

United Healthgroup Net Income $859 million
CEO 2008 Compensation 3.2 million

Aetna Inc. Net Income 346 million
CEO 2008 Compensation 24.3 million (no... not a typo)

Cigna Net Income 435 million
CEO 2008 Compensation 4.3 million

Humana Inc Net Income 282 million
CEO 2008 Compensation 4.76 million

WellPoint Inc. Net Income 693 million
CEO 2008 Compensation 9.84


There are more but I'll end there. So my point here is that there is soooo much money at play for health insurers. They will stop at nothing (fake grass roots protests, calling the President a Nazi, stoking fears that health care reform includes killing seniors, or killing down syndrome babies of former Alaskan Governors) to convince people that this is bad for the country. We deserve better. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something.