Belmont Club: Kinda Funny But Kinda Sad

Perhaps the saddest and funniest story in recent days comes from Forbes. Merrill Matthews, himself an insurance industry leader, writes about how his industry was led on by the golden visions of Obamacare only to find itself in a waterless desert. While being courted by the president they were shown fleeting glimpses of gold and jewels. But what they got instead was a website that wouldn’t accept payments and a set of rules that forced them to accept non-paying customers, retroactively. Read more at Belmont Club… Read More......

Aetna's CEO Compensation

FUTURE OF CAPITALISM, 2/17/2010 - "Aetna is a well-managed company and I am confident that your shareholders are going to do well," President Obama said to Aetna CEO Ronald Williams at the White House before a nationwide television audience back in June. The Seton Hall University Law School Health Reform Watch blog reports that Mr. Williams's 2008 total compensation was $24,300,112. Not bad for a year in which Aetna's share price plummetted to $28.46 from $56.47, losing about half of its value. The Seton Hall blog says that by comparison, WellPoint CEO Angela Braly is underpaid. She earned $9,844,212 in 2008. To Mr. Obama, the bankers are fat cat suicide bombers earning obscene bonuses (or they were, at least until he changed his tune). But the health insurance companies, whose executives earn as much or more than the bankers, are "well managed." Or at least Aetna is. Mr. Obama wasn't criticizing the insurance companies, because they pretty much backed his plan to force Americans to become their customers and use tax dollars to subsidize their premiums. We're generally of the view that free markets should set compensation. But there aren't too many other businesses around where you can earn a free-market salary while using the force of government to corral customers and the taxing power of government to subsidize your premiums. And Mr. Obama says a health care overhaul failed because he didn't do a good enough job of explaining it? Read More......

Healthcare: Insurers fear House Dems probe is reprisal

FOX NEWS, 8/19/2009, Full Title: Health Insurers Fear Probe By House Dems Is Reprisal for Opposing Part of Obama's Plan - Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Bart Stupak, D-Mich., sent a letter warning health insurers that the House Energy and Commerce Committee is "examining executive compensation and other business practices of the health industry." ∴ In a move some fear is a reprisal for opposing President Obama's health care plan, Democrats sent 52 letters to health insurers requesting financial records for a House committee's investigation. Read more at FOX... Read More......

Change We Can't Believe In?

WASHINGTON POST, 8/12/2009 by Ruth Marcus - Candidate Barack Obama offered a lofty vision of how his White House would operate. When the details of health reform were being hammered out, he vowed, "We'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." ∴ The campaign even aired an ad singling out Billy Tauzin, the drug industry's chief lobbyist. "The pharmaceutical industry wrote into the prescription drug plan that Medicare could not negotiate with drug companies," Obama said in the ad. "And you know what? The chairman of the committee, who pushed the law through, went to work for the pharmaceutical industry making $2 million a year. Imagine that." ∴ Now, it turns out, the Obama White House has cut a backroom -- actually, Roosevelt Room -- deal with Tauzin: Drugmakers would ante up $80 billion in savings in return for a promise that Medicare wouldn't be allowed to negotiate drug prices. Read more at the Washington Post...

Hat tip: John H. Detweiler
John writes, "Change?" Read More......