rising medical costs?...or rising healthcare insurance companies' profits?

[islandmkl]

from Health Care for America Now! www.HealthCareforAmericaNow.org

Oversized Profits, Executive Pay

Profits at 10 of the country’s largest publicly traded health insurance companies in 2007 rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007, from $2.4 billion to $12.9 billion, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

In 2007 alone the chief executive officers at these companies collected combined total compensation of $118.6 million—an average of $11.9 million each. That is 468 times more than the $25,434 an average American worker made that year.

The rising premiums paid by employers and families not only generate oversized net earnings, they also fuel controversial financial maneuvers designed to pump up insurers’ stock prices, which in turn help executives reach their personal bonus targets. From 2003 through 2008 the seven largest publicly traded health insurers, which cover 116 million Americans, spent $52.4 billion buying back their own shares. Buybacks reduce the number of shares that are publicly traded, raising the value of existing shareholders’ stakes. Companies make share repurchases with excess cash on hand or with borrowed funds. Buybacks are a way of removing money from a company’s balance sheet for the benefit of investors, reflecting management’s decision not to invest in improving a company’s operations, making the health system run more efficiently or reducing customers’ premiums.

The companies prefer to hand over the money to Wall Street investors and executives whose soaring compensation packages depend on reaching earnings-per-share goals that often would not be achieved without buybacks.

full state-by-state analysis and more: http://hcfan.3cdn.net/dadd15782e627e5b75_g9m6isltl.pdf

[ThirdWorldJohn]

1. And rising insurance lobbyist money going into the the Senator's and Representative's pockets n/t

[CrispyQ]

2. 2 recs, 2 comments. ???

I'm sending this article to everyone on my list.

k&r

[Hannah Bell]

3. kick