Labor & Employment Law

Health Insurance CEO?s $73 Million Bonus Covers a Lot of Co-Pays?and Other Health Care News

By Mike Hall

Millions of working families are struggling to pay the ever-rising costs of health care or going without, and they await what Congress will do with health care reform.

But one person who won’t have to worry about the final shape of health care legislation is H. Edward Hanway. He just retired as CEO and chairman of the board of the health insurance behemoth CIGNA.

Even if his co-pays double and his deductibles and premiums rise, his $73 million retirement bonus?not to mention $12 million compensation in 2009?should take care of those pesky increases. Read more at the Health Care Journal of Northern California.M

Meanwhile, the House and Senate leaders are meeting this evening with President Obama to try to hash out the next steps in the health care battle, now that both houses have passed bills with significant differences.

One of the biggest differences in the Senate bill is a new tax on the health benefits of working families to help pay for reform.  Instead of a tax on working families that some estimate could impact as many as 40 percent of families with insurance over the next few years, the House bill uses a tax surcharge on individuals making $500,000 a year or families with an annual $1 million income. Compare the two bills here.

The latest poll from Rasmussen Reports shows that a huge majority of the general public agrees with the AFL-CIO and other advocates of real reform that the Senate tax on benefits should be scrapped. The poll finds 59 percent opposed to the tax and 64 percent in favor of a tax surcharge on the wealthiest.

Advocates for the excise tax on health benefits claim it would only apply to so-called high-cost “Cadillac plans.” But an analysis by Maggie Mahar at Health Beat shows the real victims of the tax are those of us with Ford, Chevy and Dodge plans. Read more here.

Meanwhile, in a classic case of good news and bad news, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services reports that health care spending in the United States rose in 2008 at its slowest pace in nearly 50 years. But as Merrill Goozner points out on his health care blog, Gooznews on Health:

Don’t break out the champagne quite yet. The slowdown was fed by a million people being dumped from insurance rolls as unemployment skyrocketed. The most important fact about last year’s 4.4 percent growth in health care spending (down from 6 percent in 2007) was that it still outpaced overall economic growth by a nearly two-to-one margin.

With both the House and Senate not due back in session until later this month, the content of the final health care reform bill is a guessing game. But we will keep you posted.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on January 05, 2010 (boomark / email).