"the former CEO of the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, who took home nearly $900 million"

[uponit7771]

What's not being talked about in regards to health care cost, this should make people fighting mad ! Not hating on anyone who gets a little bit more than usual but being paid in the 10s of millions while most of Americas budgets get crushed with health care cost and then a hand full making over 100 million is disgusting.

Fuck trickle down, these folk have trickled down nothing but suffering on this country while outputting relatively little

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/07/26/539518682/as-cost-of-u-s-health-care-skyrockets-so-does-pay-of-health-care-ceos

Based on corporate financial filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Herman did research on 113 heads of 70 of the largest U.S. health care companies in the last seven years. Cumulatively, he says, these CEOs have earned $9.8 billion since the ACA was first enacted. Only four of the 113 CEOs were women, he notes, and only two are right now in charge of major health care companies.

The top earner was John Martin, the former CEO of the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, who took home nearly $900 million, Herman says. Gilead makes, among other things, medicines to treat HIV and AIDS, as well as two leading drugs to treat hepatitis C.

Several other executives topped $250 million.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. A complete coincidence that his chairman was one Donald Rumsfeld until 2001

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilead_Sciences

when he left to pursue some other business opportunties, I can't remember what. But I'm sure he cut all his ties with the company, didn't he? http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/

[annabanana]

2. infuriating, kick. . . . .n/t

[Cicada]

3. What is the best solution?

John Martin's firm has produced drugs which save millions of lives. He was the head of research before becoming CEO. If there is a heaven he will go directly there without passing go. And the excessive profits last only for the period of the patent. The $1500 per month cost of their aids drug will fall to maybe $25 per month, forever, after the patent. They sell it for ten dollars per month in Africa, I think, thanks to a deal Bill Clinton helped broker. So Martin has done work worth what he has been paid. Many times over. But if he had known he would have earned only fifty million dollars he would have worked just as hard. And the rest of the money could be used to further increase the value of what Martin did. I think we need a higher tax rate on what might be called windfall profits. And I would support regulation limiting drug prices to levels which would still provide adequate reward for the risks of research. The incredible profit margins of drug firms can be reduced without seriously reducing incentives for developing new drugs. The margins will still be higher than any other conceivable profit they can make using their funds for something else.

[lostnfound]

5. "Price gouging" is illegal after hurricanes, for exploiting desperation of other human beings

The high price of drugs fits a similar pattern to price gouging after a hurricane: taking advantage of desperate people.
The exhorbitant compensation needs to be considered in another light. It's a transfer of ownership (usually stock) used as an incentive that provides control (and incidentally, future income through dividends and eventual sale) and the more routine case of compensation that supports consumption.

This level of compensation is a reward not for having invented the drug but for having ensured that the company profited tremendously. In some cases, it includes rewards to the CEO for behaviors that are antisocial: paying kickbacks to doctors to prescribe it, lobbying the AMA or NIH or CDC for lowering recommendations of the numbers by which diseases are defined (I.e., you are considered to have high cholesterol or high blood pressure at lower numbers) thereby increasing the number of people taking your medicine, and lobbying or influencing congress to set laws that are beneficial to keeping prices high.

If he was the "one person" that developed a new lifesaving drug, give him a giant reward...but I doubt it was just one person.

[Justice]

7. But $900 million???

[Cicada]

8. No, he should be taxed at a high rate on that, 60% or so

[OxQQme]

4. Nothing's being addressed about the actual costs of the system

Are there any proposals on the table now — either in Republican bills or in Democratic proposals — that would actually reduce health care costs significantly and reverse this trend?

In the health care debate right now, none of the proposals in Congress address this whatsoever. A lot of what's being proposed merely tinkers with the financing of health care and who gets health insurance. Nothing is being addressed about drug prices, for example. Nothing's being addressed about the actual costs of the system. The debate right now is still bickering over how to finance the system — not around how much the system itself costs, which I think is a big issue.

[uponit7771]

6. +1, I've heard no proposals on the system

[Cicada]

9. Price fixing would work, as in almost every other country

[uponit7771]

11. +1

[Le Gaucher]

10. But but .. He is a MAKER .. and the rest of you moochers are takers.

Seriously .. My wife is an Adjunct professor in Biology ( Teaches Genetics/ Micro & Molecular Biology). She has over 15 papers in top journals.. She works her tail off .. preparing for lectures and carefully grading assignments and tests well into the night .. and she would consider herself lucky to clear 20K a year. He made 45,000 times what my wife made.. THAT IS SERIOUS FUCKING INJUSTICE

My wife is wicked smart, has amazing social skills, incredibly dedicated and diligent .. She has worked hard all her life ... but has a dead end job.

Some thing is very fucked up in this country.