We all remember that commercials like these were made to trick Americans into thinking that health care reform would hurt average working families. We now see what has happened to the health-care system. CEOs rake in the big bucks from the huge profits they take in as health-insurance costs have skyrocketed.
FierceHealthcare reports the following top 10 CEO salaries for 2008.
* Ron Williams - Aetna - Total Compensation: $24,300,112.
* H. Edward Hanway - CIGNA - Total Compensation: $12,236,740.
* Angela Braly - WellPoint - Total Compensation: $9,844,212.
* Dale Wolf - Coventry Health Care - Total Compensation: $9,047,469.
* Michael Neidorff - Centene - Total Compensation: $8,774,483.
* James Carlson - AMERIGROUP - Total Compensation: $5,292,546.
* Michael McCallister - Humana - Total Compensation: $4,764,309.
* Jay Gellert - Health Net - Total Compensation: $4,425,355.
* Richard Barasch - Universal American - Total Compensation: $3,503,702.
* Stephen Hemsley - UnitedHealth Group - Total Compensation: $3,241,042.
My rates go up and coverage goes down every time I turn around. And then they just decide not to cover certain medications without an explanation. Even scumbag criminals are resurfacing like Rick Scott to try and con America for a second time -- and the media do nothing about it.
“Isn’t it amazing folks in Congress were shocked the plan THEY passed allowed those huge bonuses for AIG?" asks Rick Scott, the former health-care executive who chairs the group, in a new television ad to be released tomorrow. "Now some in Congress want to raise taxes and spend $634 billion for the President’s health-care overhaul - - WITHOUT even seeing all the details of his plan. They just never seem to learn."
Ah, yes, Rick Scott. Funny, the details the Politico leaves out of their stories! From Christopher Hayes in The Nation:
Having Scott lead the charge against health-care reform is like tapping Bernie Madoff to campaign against tighter securities regulation. You see, the for-profit hospital chain Scott helped found--the one he ran and built his entire reputation on--was discovered to be in the habit of defrauding the government out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
This is the man who will be delivering what Politico called the "pro-free-market message."
Third Way is a DLC thinkers outfit that's trying to talk for liberals on health care and have the nerve to think we wouldn't see right through their crap.
mcjoan at KOS has the take down.
Here's their premise:
Whether health-care reform should include a "public plan" is an issue that now threatens to fracture the emerging consensus on health reform. If left unresolved, the debate over a public plan could derail the broader reform agenda while other pressing issues central to reform are put on hold.
The proponents of a public plan seek the right goals—to broaden access and lower costs. But there is a very real danger that an overly intrusive public plan can ultimately undermine these very goals and destabilize the private-sector coverage that middle-class Americans—i.e., Harry and Louise—depend on and are largely satisfied with.
They actually invoke Harry and Louise again, which is fitting, since Harry and Louise were a creation of the insurance industry, much like this plan seems to be. In the event that Third Way forgot, "proponents" of the public option include President Obama, one of the key Senate leaders on the issue, and the largest voting bloc in the House of Representatives. It's not a fringe group of DFHers who want a solid public option. It's the consensus of the majority of Democrats. And the President.
Nonetheless, Third Way seems committed to doing the dirty work of the insurance lobby from the "left." Here's the plan's four basic elements:...read on
I'm waiting for them to hire Sam Waterston to do Unity09-HealthCare commercials for them. There's a tough fight a brewing and the Ben Nelson's are trying to derail any form of health care reform.
