According to Market Watch, Aetna CEO Ronald Williams “earned” nearly $43 million in total compensation in 2007. The census bureau set the 2007 poverty line for a single person at $9944 (over 65) or $10,787 (under 65); let’s just call it a nice round $10,000.

Meanwhile, this painter/sculptor might dispute the use of the word “earned” in the Market Watch story:  Read more 

My very own corporate parasite, Aetna, is losing the battle for public opinion in the pages of New Jersey’s Bridgeton News. In a story on the reaction to Aetna’s decision to drop The Center for Diagnostic Imaging (CDI) of Cumberland County from its network, Andrea Scapellato, whose husband has been depending on CDI for regular ultrasounds, is quoted:

“First you have to pay for insurance, and then you can’t even go where you want to go,” she said. “We live in the United States, not communist China or Russia.”  Read more 

Stock prices of Aetna and other health insurers are up. How nice for them and their shareholders.

Meanwhile, the lowly life-forms who actually need health care abandon all hope in the health (couldn’t) care (less) system:  Read more 

Adopt-a-parasite? The whole health (couldn’t) care (less) system is a parasite on the body politic. At Salon, a doctor lays out the obscenity: (via Suburban Guerilla)

As a resident in a Los Angeles hospital, he tries to get the on-call orthopedic surgeon to come in the middle of the night to treat a five-year-old with a severe broken leg.  Read more 

Tragedy!

Poor William L. Jews. His compensation package for leaving his position as CareFirst CEO has been cut by more than half. This means Mr. Jews will not get the $18 million severance he was expecting, but will receive less than 9 million bucks. Can you imagine having to get by on just shy of 9 million bucks? I mean, you can’t even buy a decent Santa Barbara estate for that kind of money anymore.

Why was this outrage perpetrated? Well, it seems CareFirst is a nonprofit health provider

How much health care does $9 million buy in California?

Why was Caitlin White’s $113,000 brain surgery delayed for more than two months? Would she ever have had the surgery without the intervention of TV news?

It’s really not clear from the linked story, but this much is clear: Caitlin’s mother believes the “claim came in too late” for her to have the surgery scheduled for May. She also believes that the insurer denied coverage altogether when she rescheduled the surgery. The insurer, Aetna, disputes the circumstances, but according to the story it took pressure from a local TV station and a four-day investigation to get Aetna to “change its tune” and “partner” with Tampa General Hospital to fully cover the costs.  Read more