Outrageous Fortune of Healthcare CEO's

Ted · Aug 15, 2002

Thanks for this post . . . and all your posts.

Read this article. Yikes! :eek: This is one of many reasons why, in my opinion, healthcare should be not for profit (and curbs should be set to CEO salaries). Any money going toward stock dividends and hugely inflated CEO salaries is money not going to healthcare.

Ted

colleen10 · Aug 15, 2002

Do any of you think that one day this system will just implode?

oramar · Aug 15, 2002

Does anyone else think that the dishonesty and greed in the general business sector rubbed off on the healthcare business? Perhaps the policy that "healthcare for profits will solve all our troubles" is an idea that's time has come and gone.

sjoe · Aug 15, 2002

Of course "healthcare-as-business" is no different from, say, the utilities industry. Why would anyone even imagine that healthcare CEOs would be different from Enron's? The past 10 years have provided us all with ample demonstrations of this, why the surprise?

shannonRN, BSN, RN · Aug 15, 2002

not trying to play devil's advocate because i don't think it is right..but i had a converstion with one of our docs and he kind of had a good point. he was comparing what ceo's of hospitals made versus ceo's of other businesses. i know that means that we are looking at healthcare as a business, but unfortunately it is. i forget the exact numbers but they make a certain percentage of their company's income and he figured it out for our ceo and he would be making tons more money if it was looked at it that way.....

UKRNinUSA, RN · Aug 16, 2002

Nobody should be profiting from another person's misery.

Healthcare should be a not-for-profit "industry" - according to the article a CEO's salary could provide 1 years insurance coverage for 225,000 people or pay the salary of 331 nurses. Maybe alll the healthcare CEO's could all pool their salaries to solve the nursing shortage and provide insurance coverage for the millions of uninsured Americans! How much of your insurance premium or hospital bill goes to lining the pocket of some corporate fatcat? And while you're at it have the pharmaceutical CEO's forgo their salaries to bring the cost of drugs down to what the rest of the world is paying.

Why should we tolerate this kind of greed in a civilized country -it's disgusting.

JailRN · Aug 16, 2002

When I was in the hospital setting '76, for christmas, the nurses got a gift certificate for turkeys, the CEO got $10,000. "Turkeys for the turkeys and he gets 10 grand"

Don't thick that didn't stir up $h*t.

Hardknox · Aug 16, 2002

I really think CEO's salaries are out of whack. Who are these minor gods anyway. They get paid millions after their companies go bellyup. Short of revolution, I have no answers but it is an obscene society we live in when people die for lack of healthcare and these BA$TARDS can never get enough millions!

Thanks, Karen. Always educating us!

sjoe · Aug 17, 2002

UKRNinUSA: You mean that grocery stores should not profit from selling food to people who would otherwise be miserably hungry? If so, they would soon go out of business. And utility companies should not profit from selling electricity or gas to people who would otherwise be miserably cold? If so, why would they bother to do so? And I suppose none of us should accept a salary for providing healthcare services to people who would otherwise be miserable? If so, would YOU show up for work? Neither would I.

UKRNinUSA, RN · Aug 19, 2002

I was just waiting for a response such as yours , sjoe. No of course I dont mean that - you're taking my argument to the nth degree. Come on, you must admit that it is morally and ethically reprehensible for somebody to be making such an obscene salary at the expense of others. Anyway, just the opinion of a self confessed "bleeding heart liberal" -I don't know how one can be involved in such an altruistic profession, concerned with the welfare of society as a whole, and not be disgusted by these people.

-jt · Aug 22, 2002

My state assemblyman made a good point in response to a similar discussion as your doctors. He said the difference is that CEOs in private industry are paid with the REVENUE of the company. That is private funding. But every hospital that accepts medicare or medicaide pts is funded in part with public funds from the government. (taxpayer dollars) Even the for- profit hospitals receive public funding. The intent of giving the hospitals money from the government - the taxpaying public - was so that it would be spent on servicing the public - not servicing themselves in the form of outrageous salaries & perks.

Private industry can pay their CEOs whatever they want from their private revenue but CEOs of institutions that are funded by the public to serve the public cant expect to have those funds for their own pocket.

Incidentally, he made the same argument when he was told that the shortage of hospital nurses exists in part because hospitals are not competitve with private industry & nurses are finding better offers outside of the hospital environment.