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WellPoint CEO enjoys healthy 51% pay hike

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shadow9d9 said:
-snip-
I'll make it easier for you. Health insurances could be using their profits to help cover elderly.
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Profits are a 'cost of capital'.

'Capital' is not free, you can either pay interest, or dividends to get capital.

Our gov pays about 3% (LT Treasuries) for it's capital, about the same as the HC industry (it's profit %).

Fern
 
Gonad the Barbarian said:
That's the jist of it, and the sad fact is I think a lot the defenders hope to be part of the scummy bunch of shitbags machine one day making their millions off of the rest of us lowly peasants too. If they aren't already.
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Looks like you have added too many people to your ignore list... Either that, or you've jammed your fingers too far into your ear canals.
 
CycloWizard said:
Looks like you have added too many people to your ignore list... Either that, or you've jammed your fingers too far into your ear canals.
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Hey, I'm giving folks the benefit of the doubt assuming it is just greed motivating them and not homo-erotic desire for sweet anal loving from the health insurance and financial industries. I hear rape fantasies are more popular then one would expect though.
 
Gonad the Barbarian said:
Hey, I'm giving folks the benefit of the doubt assuming it is just greed motivating them and not homo-erotic desire for sweet anal loving from the health insurance and financial industries. I hear rape fantasies are more popular then one would expect though.
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What is your proposed solution? I pay Blue Cross/Blue Shield a nominal fee to minimize the impact a catastrophic health event might have on my family's financial situation. What's the problem here, all of your appeals to homoeroticism aside?
 
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cubby1223 said:
Damn athletes making $20m/year for hitting a ball with a stick!

Damn actors making $20m for one movie!

The simple truth is you cannot dictate prices. You cannot dictate salaries.

Stop being outraged just because someone else tells you you must be outraged.

If you don't like WellPoint, then don't buy from WellPoint.
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This is what I don't understand.

Athletes get paid millions from swinging a golf ball, racket, or a baseball bat.
Actors and directors from the liberal Hollywood eilte get paid $20+ million from making a movie.

But yet when a CEO makes $5, 10, 20 or 30 million, they all go into rage.
 
lothar said:
This is what I don't understand.

Athletes get paid millions from swinging a golf ball, racket, or a baseball bat.
Actors and directors from the liberal Hollywood eilte get paid $20+ million from making a movie.

But yet when a CEO makes $5, 10, 20 or 30 million, they all go into rage.
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That's because it's not about the money. Actors and athletes aren't running companies with business models centered around screwing the masses over for their millions. Not all CEO's do either, but it seems to be standard operating procedure for ones from the health insurance and financial services industries.
 
Gonad the Barbarian said:
That's because it's not about the money. Actors and athletes aren't running companies with business models centered around screwing the masses over for their millions.
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Really? How many hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate welfare is required to build a stadium these days? But the people and the politicians turn the other way because watching the game makes us stupid and happy. That's a winning combination for any fat cat corporate lobbyist. Sports is one of the BEST industries to be in for pillaging the taxpayers and having them thank you for it at the end of the day.
 
The amount he Made isn't the issue, but the fact that what he made is tied to Stock Prices and the big Fee Increases for Customers to ensure future Returns for Stock Holders is the big issues here. IOW, he Increased Fees so he can Pay Himself more. That's just all kinds BS right there and certainly a Conflict of Interest that should be Illegal.
 
sandorski said:
The amount he Made isn't the issue, but the fact that what he made is tied to Stock Prices and the big Fee Increases for Customers to ensure future Returns for Stock Holders is the big issues here. IOW, he Increased Fees so he can Pay Himself more. That's just all kinds BS right there and certainly a Conflict of Interest that should be Illegal.
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Actually the jump in compensation was proportional to a one time realization of profits that came from selling a subsidiary, but don't worry about the facts...
 
sandorski said:
Fees were raised to ensure Future Returns. Don't worry about the Facts...
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No, fees were raised to ensure solvency of the reserve fund due to healthy clients declining coverage. These fee increases were approved in advance by the insurance commissioner, but then Congress acts surprised after the fact in order to pander to the public and pretend that they care. Increasing fees can't guarantee future returns, because customers are free to leave if they don't like paying them. Fee increases are done to guarantee that the reserves are in compliance with industry standards. If such increases are just gravy and have nothing to do with underlying expenses (as you seem to allege), then their competitors are free to undercut them.

No business is forced to do business with Wellpoint if they feel that Wellpoint's prices are unreasonable. Employees may be SOL, but shockingly the two major systemic problems that entrench the employer provided "benefit" model (tax discrimination between employer and employee purchased insurance, and provider price discrimination which makes small and individual plans pay much higher prices than large group plans) were not addressed by the recent law. I wonder why that is... 🙄
 
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nonlnear said:
Really? How many hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate welfare is required to build a stadium these days? But the people and the politicians turn the other way because watching the game makes us stupid and happy. That's a winning combination for any fat cat corporate lobbyist. Sports is one of the BEST industries to be in for pillaging the taxpayers and having them thank you for it at the end of the day.
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Reminiscent of Ancient Romes and the Gladiator games
 
cubby1223 said:
Damn athletes making $20m/year for hitting a ball with a stick!

Damn actors making $20m for one movie!

The simple truth is you cannot dictate prices. You cannot dictate salaries.

Stop being outraged just because someone else tells you you must be outraged.

If you don't like WellPoint, then don't buy from WellPoint.
Click to expand...

Bingo.
 
sandorski said:
The amount he Made isn't the issue, but the fact that what he made is tied to Stock Prices and the big Fee Increases for Customers to ensure future Returns for Stock Holders is the big issues here. IOW, he Increased Fees so he can Pay Himself more. That's just all kinds BS right there and certainly a Conflict of Interest that should be Illegal.
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Why shouldn't a CEO's compensation be based on company stock price/performance?
 
lothar said:
Why shouldn't a CEO's compensation be based on company stock price/performance?
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Because when the stock price/company performance goes down, the CEO still gets a fat golden parachute.

Why shouldn't stock holders have a say in how much a CEO gets paid?
 
her209 said:
Because when the stock price/company performance goes down, the CEO still gets a fat golden parachute.

Why shouldn't stock holders have a say in how much a CEO gets paid?
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There are good reasons to discuss CEO compensation, however this thread isn't about that. It's about a specious argument regarding health care. Whatever the CEOs compensation is, and whether any deserve what they get is immaterial. It's merely a means to an end with this topic, and that's to nail private insurance.

This thread is a red herring, but you probably know that.
 
her209 said:
Because when the stock price/company performance goes down, the CEO still gets a fat golden parachute.

Why shouldn't stock holders have a say in how much a CEO gets paid?
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Are you a disgruntled stock holder? If so, you should sell your stock and invest in companies with boards that comport with your sensibilities.
 
Hayabusa Rider said:
There are good reasons to discuss CEO compensation, however this thread isn't about that. It's about a specious argument regarding health care. Whatever the CEOs compensation is, and whether any deserve what they get is immaterial. It's merely a means to an end with this topic, and that's to nail private insurance.

This thread is a red herring, but you probably know that.
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I'm not the one that brought it up. I was addressing a question.

🙄
 
Hayabusa Rider said:
There are good reasons to discuss CEO compensation, however this thread isn't about that. It's about a specious argument regarding health care. Whatever the CEOs compensation is, and whether any deserve what they get is immaterial. It's merely a means to an end with this topic, and that's to nail private insurance.

This thread is a red herring, but you probably know that.
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It's not even about nailing private insurance. It's about humming along to the tune of politicians who are putting on a fake show of indignation to make the public think they dislike private insurers.

"We are shocked! Shocked! to find that profiteering is going on in here!"

The sad thing is there are people who will watch the snippets of these fake Congressional hearings in their sanitized news broadcasts and think, "My oh my, those Congressional folks are really sticking it to that overpaid profiteering bitch! Watch her squirm."
 
her209 said:
I'm not the one that brought it up. I was addressing a question.

🙄
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You were, and I didn't select you out personally. It's just that this whole thread is about something which is ridiculous. FWIW I think that individual shareholders ought to have more say and that CEO compensation is far removed from merit. It's simply what's done.
 
her209 said:
Because when the stock price/company performance goes down, the CEO still gets a fat golden parachute.

Why shouldn't stock holders have a say in how much a CEO gets paid?
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Some of the golden parachute you speak off are stock options that were granted the previous years, not ones granted that same year that they were fired.
Do you also believe if one is fired, they should give up their 401k matching contributions eventhough they've been fully vested?

They do have a say...Indirectly at least. 😉
Why shouldn't citizens have a say in how much congress gets paid?
 
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