Billionaire Insurance CEO’s – $79k per hour salaries

The Republicans and the Tea Partiers all are against raising the income tax on millionaires or cutting the tax breaks for big oil. Then in the same breath they want to do away with Medicare and privatize Social Security. This is what I consider immoral. Last year United Health Care received a 19% (was granted to Health Net of Connecticut for its policies sold to employers. Health Net recently completed a merger with United Healthcare) increase in insurance premiums, they said that they needing the increase to cover the cost of the new health care coverage. The numbers are not in for this year, but in 2009 the CEO had a 978.1% raise, that is no typo. Do you wish that you a raise of just one percent of his raise, 9.7%? His total compensation went from $9,474,880 in 2008 to a whopping $101,959,866 in 2009 while our premiums skyrocketed. And the Republicans and the Tea Partiers want to cut his taxes even more; meanwhile they are cutting Head Start, Meals on Wheels for the elderly, the Woman Infant and Child (WIC) program, heating assistance and rent subsidies.

Not only are the CEOs racking in the cash, but also the companies. Do you remember last fall when the insurance companies asked for record rate increase saying that with the passage of the Health Care Reform bill which removed the spending cap and pre-existing conditions they needed the increase. Look at how they did in the first quarter of the year.

Health Insurers Making Record Profits as Many Postpone Care
New York Times
By Reed Abelson
May 13, 2011

The nation’s major health insurers are barreling into a third year of record profits, enriched in recent months by a lingering recessionary mind-set among Americans who are postponing or forgoing medical care.

The UnitedHealth Group, one of the largest commercial insurers, told analysts that so far this year, insured hospital stays actually decreased in some instances. In reporting its earnings last week, Cigna, another insurer, talked about the “low level” of medical use.

Yet the companies continue to press for higher premiums, even though their reserve coffers are flush with profits and shareholders have been rewarded with new dividends. Many defend proposed double-digit increases in the rates they charge, citing a need for protection against any sudden uptick in demand once people have more money to spend on their health, as well as the rising price of care.
[…]
Some observers wonder if the insurers are simply raising premiums in advance of the full force of the health care law in 2014. The insurers’ recent prosperity — big insurance companies have reported first-quarter earnings that beat analysts expectations by an average of 30 percent — may make it difficult for anyone, politicians and industry executives alike, to argue that the industry has been hurt by the federal health care law. Insurers were able to raise premiums to cover the cost of the law’s early provisions, like insuring adult children up to age 26, and federal and state regulators have largely proved to be accommodating.

Also, I think that it was no coincidence that they made these claims that for higher premiums just before the November elections and they blamed the increases on President Obama Health Care Reform.

The other Republican and the Tea Party sacred cow is Big Oil…

'Big Oil' should pay fair share
Asheville Citizen-Times
By Joseph R. Prochaska
May 11. 2011

Oil prices are at historic highs right now: they are fluctuating between $100 and $120/barrel. The price of oil is high enough for oil companies to continue to explore for oil reserves, drill oil wells, and sell that oil to you or to anyone else for a profit. So high that Exxon made nearly $11 billion in profits in the first quarter of 2011 alone. It is a fine time, globally and in America, to be in the oil business.

It is not just the price of oil that makes things so good for the oil business. Right now, the federal tax code is absolutely loaded with nearly $4 billion in tax subsidies and giveaways to oil companies. In 2009, according to Forbes magazine, Exxon paid $0 in federal income taxes. That’s right: when you last filled up your car, you paid more in federal fuel taxes than Exxon paid in income taxes on $46 billion in profits.

What does the oil and gas industry say about the Democrat effort to do away with the tax breaks?

Senate Democrats target biggest oil companies with proposed tax hikes
Oil & Gas Journal
May 16, 2011
Nick Snow
Washington Editor

US Senate Democrats announced a bill on May 10 that would increase federal taxes for the nation's five biggest oil companies by eliminating several key deductions. They said the measure would close a major loophole at a time when the companies were making massive profits. Oil and gas companies and industry groups immediately condemned the idea as a major mistake.
[…]
He said the five companies toward which the bill is aimed—BP PLC, Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell PLC—made $36 billion in profits during this year's first quarter. "Yet the US government is giving these companies $4 billion/year in corporate welfare," Reid declared.
[…]
Oil and gas companies and industry associations immediately condemned the proposal. American Petroleum Institute Pres. Jack N. Gerard called it "a vindictive money grab [that] could put more people out of work across America, damage our nation's energy security, raise energy costs, and ultimately drive up deficits.

So let me get this straight, the oil and gas companies that made $36,000,000 last quarter are complaining that a tax of $500.000 a quarter will result in “damage our nation's energy security, raise energy costs, and ultimately drive up deficits.” Unhun… does that make sense to you?