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Health Care CEOs Pocket Big Bucks, Still Fight Real Reform
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Republicans on Capitol Hill want to keep the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich. Never mind the nation lost nearly 8 million jobs under the Bush administration when the tax breaks were in place.
Now, Ezra Klein points out why the corporate-backed Republicans support tax breaks for the wealthy. Klein pulled together a chart comparing how much of a break each taxpayer would receive under President Obama’s tax plan and the Bush plan. For taxpayers who make $1 million a year or more, the tax break under the Bush plan is 16 times as big as it is under the Obama plan ($103,835 vs. $6,349).
Some of the people who got those huge tax breaks are the CEOs of health care companies. According to a new study by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), while most people struggled to pay health care premiums, the CEOs of the nation’s health care companies made nearly $1 billion last year—enough to pay for every resident of Philadelphia, Dallas and Minneapolis combined to go to their regular doctor for an office visit. Read the report here.
The same insurance companies that lavished their CEOs with these exorbitant salaries are now fighting a behind-the-scenes battle to make even more money by circumventing the new health care reform law, HCAN reports. The new health reform law includes a provision that requires insurers to spend on patient care at least 80 percent of health plan premiums collected from individuals and small employers and 85 percent of premiums paid by large employers.
“The insurance companies and their army of lobbyists are doing everything they can to undermine this law,” says HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome.
To feed their greed, they are pressuring regulators to change the very definition of what is “medical care” so they can ignore these important new requirements and trump Congress.
So, health care execs get big salaries and huge tax breaks. But instead of creating new jobs with their money, they are trying to find ways to sock it to the rest of us.
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5 Comments
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I’m not trying to solicit here but I do have some information on what happens with health insurance and the tie ins in the background you may not be aware of. Many own subsidiaries and that is the next area to watch as they create intelligence on steroids with mining and combining data with few laws to protect us as our Congress lacks a lot of even consumer Health IT knowledge and consumer digital knowledge.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2010/08/medicare-contractor-gets-deal-to.html
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2010/07/unitedhealth-group-2nd-quarter-profits.html
Again I hope they prove helpful and there’s more where that came from. I used to write computer code and know how data is used for power and control with mathematical formulas called algorithms and thus my focus as you can query for “desired” numbers or “accurate” results and it gets really gray sometimes with those getting sold a bill of goods and not knowing the difference as this also runs Wall Street=as they say there, “those algos”. This may not make anyone any happier but hopefully explains what is happening and what has happened here.
We average americans need to find these lobbyists and executives and behead them for the crime of IDOLATRY!Greed is idolatry and should be punished by beheading!!Eventually innocent people die as a result of the rich keeping the fruits of the workers’ labor from them,this is why I advocate the death penalty for this crime!
Not only this, but we have health care rationing. Forget it if you want end-of-life care. Mr. Berwick thinks mammograms are a waste of money. So we pay more money for less services.
Do you call this health care reform?
The Congress has to stop”pussy-footing ” around with the big power lobby that isharmecuetial and insurance companies. They are in bed with easch other and our Congress. We have to demand results from these greedy incompetent legislators. Get off the corporate TIT and fight for your constituents for change.
Congress can lay down the law to these companies and any public servce concern. They have to slap down some concrete guidelines,rules and regulations and fine and incarcerate the CEO’s who are in charge if these conditions are not met. This goes for banking and loans as well. Can thegovernment interfer wit private business ; of course look at the bail outs and tax breaks. It’s a two way street.
The money we could save if Congress starting really running the country is unbelievable. Billions saved by deporting all illegal aliens. Mega billions saved by pulling out of the MUDDLE EAST! Theses are just the obvious starters.
Greed is probably what killed St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City. Several media outlets have reported a Freedom of Information Act has been filed. It is believed that the big wigs were given huge salaries that should been used for the hospital.