Next to HMO/Hospital Execs, Czar Nicholas II Appeared Clued In
There are few press releases crowding my inbox that merit attention, but today's e-mail from the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), if true, is a stunner.
According to a new report from the union, the average annual combined pay and benefits* for CEOs at California's largest HMOs is $7.4 million. Million. Million.
And this obscene compensation is in the context of, as if anybody didn't already know, historic economic hardship and escalating healthcare costs. The most well-compensated execs were Wellpoint's Angela Braly ($13.1 million) and Kaiser Pemanente's George Halvorson ($7.9 million as of 2009), the CEO of the tax-exempt and ostensibly nonprofit HMO. (They earn every penny.) The president and COO of Kaiser, Bernard Tyson, according to NUHW, receives 8 separate pension and retirement plans.
Contrast these compensation packages, the NUHW says, with the average weekly income of the American worker in late 2010: $752 (or about $39,000 yearly). And after adjusting for inflation, the NUHW argues, workers are actually making less, because in part (hey, get this) a large part of inflation is due to rising healthcare costs. Before adjusting for inflation, the annual raise for the average American worker was a paltry 0.5%, says the NUHW, whereas some Kaiser execs received payment increases just last week of more than 17%.
The NUHW scolds, nay excoriates, Kaiser for "awarding its executives a king's ransom" while "raising member rates and demanding huge economic concessions from their employees who provide the health care." The apparent instigator of this executive-damning report is management's attempt to "eliminate employees' only defined-benefit pension plan."
And although the NUHW report focuses on Kaiser, the overpayment of healthcare execs isn't limited to the company (to noone's real surprise). Samuel Downing, former CEO of the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare District, got a cash severance of $947,594 in 2008, $3.9 million in one-time retirement payments this year, and generous ongoing payments from a regular pension plan. His base annual salary, while serving a 226-bed public hospital in Salinas, was $670,000. In an attempt to find revenue for Dowling's payout, the hospital tried to lay off 200 frontline healthcare workers, the NUHW claims. The union says that regular annual pay increases (from ~6% to ~30%) were provided to other Salinas execs between 2005 and 2010.
* Including perks like bonuses, multiple pensions, homes (homes!?), personal drivers, paid travel, access to corporate jets, and so-call gross-ups--in which execs are able to write off associated taxes on benefits.
Photo of Angela Braly from Wellpoint website.
According to a new report from the union, the average annual combined pay and benefits* for CEOs at California's largest HMOs is $7.4 million. Million. Million.
And this obscene compensation is in the context of, as if anybody didn't already know, historic economic hardship and escalating healthcare costs. The most well-compensated execs were Wellpoint's Angela Braly ($13.1 million) and Kaiser Pemanente's George Halvorson ($7.9 million as of 2009), the CEO of the tax-exempt and ostensibly nonprofit HMO. (They earn every penny.) The president and COO of Kaiser, Bernard Tyson, according to NUHW, receives 8 separate pension and retirement plans.Contrast these compensation packages, the NUHW says, with the average weekly income of the American worker in late 2010: $752 (or about $39,000 yearly). And after adjusting for inflation, the NUHW argues, workers are actually making less, because in part (hey, get this) a large part of inflation is due to rising healthcare costs. Before adjusting for inflation, the annual raise for the average American worker was a paltry 0.5%, says the NUHW, whereas some Kaiser execs received payment increases just last week of more than 17%.
The NUHW scolds, nay excoriates, Kaiser for "awarding its executives a king's ransom" while "raising member rates and demanding huge economic concessions from their employees who provide the health care." The apparent instigator of this executive-damning report is management's attempt to "eliminate employees' only defined-benefit pension plan."
And although the NUHW report focuses on Kaiser, the overpayment of healthcare execs isn't limited to the company (to noone's real surprise). Samuel Downing, former CEO of the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare District, got a cash severance of $947,594 in 2008, $3.9 million in one-time retirement payments this year, and generous ongoing payments from a regular pension plan. His base annual salary, while serving a 226-bed public hospital in Salinas, was $670,000. In an attempt to find revenue for Dowling's payout, the hospital tried to lay off 200 frontline healthcare workers, the NUHW claims. The union says that regular annual pay increases (from ~6% to ~30%) were provided to other Salinas execs between 2005 and 2010.
* Including perks like bonuses, multiple pensions, homes (homes!?), personal drivers, paid travel, access to corporate jets, and so-call gross-ups--in which execs are able to write off associated taxes on benefits.
Photo of Angela Braly from Wellpoint website.
