The same CEOs who say we can't afford to guarantee health care as a right

[Uncle Joe]

Link to tweet

The chief executives of 177 health care companies collectively made $2.6 billion in 2018 — roughly $700 million more than what the National Institutes of Health spent researching Alzheimer's disease last year, according to a new Axios analysis of financial filings.

Why it matters: The pay packages reveal the health care system's real incentives: finding ways to boost revenue and stock value by raising prices, filling more hospital beds, and selling more drugs and devices.

By the numbers: The median pay of a health care CEO in 2018 was $7.7 million. Fourteen CEOs made more than $46 million each.

(snip)

Quality of care is either not a factor at all in CEOs' bonuses, or a marginal one.

(snip)

https://www.axios.com/health-care-ceo-pay-compensation-stock-2018-0ed2a8aa-250e-48f1-a47a-849b8ca83e24.html

[FiveGoodMen]

1. CEO equals Satan's Minion (and wants to be the next Satan)

[corbettkroehler]

3. Right On! And AOC Showed Us How To Begin Our Assault On Such Greed (video)

Much like Senator Harris did when she asked Barr whether he reviewed the Mueller evidence before deciding not to charge tRump, AOC asked one of the CEOs why he charged usurious prices for his drug in the U.S. but pennies on the dollar by comparison in Australia.

Link to tweet

[Vidal]

2. Another Promise Sanders Can't Keep

Bernie wrote "we will end the greed and profiteering" but we won't.

He can't.

It's a false hope.

Typical for Sanders. Promising things that will never happen.

[Nanjeanne]

4. When the only way to make a profit in insurance business is to deny care it frightens me

to think how many people are denied treatment or paying exorbitant premiums and deductibles.

Profit is the goal of any corporation, and I find it immoral that it is applied to our health. Every other country starts from the moral premise. Except us.

[Uncle Joe]

5. I agree on all counts Nanjeanne but we in the U.S.

have become normalized to the concept that profit exceeds all other considerations whether it's blood money with the for profit "health" insurance industry, profit from imprisoning the American citizens in a 21st century version of slavery with the for profit prison industry, profit from sticking with fossil fuels way past the time to move on for the sake of our kids and grand kids futures, profit from waging multiple wars or working to overthrow governments that don't kowtow to our mega-corporate conglomerates

Profit is literally killing and imprisoning the American People and yet so many people don't seem to care one way or the other that something is deeply immoral and dysfunctional about these practices and this kind of system simply can not sustain itself without ultimate societal collapse if not corrected as so many previous empires throughout world history discovered too late.

I believe much of this normalization is brought about by the corporate media conglomerates which are so heavily invested in the status quo of pushing overpriced prescription drugs on a daily commercial selling basis to pad their own profits or are tied to the war machine by their parent corporations along with a host of other issues which prevent them from being honest brokers for the people.

I do believe the closest analogy to our national identity would be the Ferengi race on Star Trek episodes, basically it's every person for them self in our dog eat dog society. There seems to be very little sense of the common good; in "the land of the free" that societal virtue is given short shrift by the corporate media conglomerates because of their deeply inherent conflicts of interest. This is all deeply ironic as the common good can in most cases actually enhance freedom, independence and security for the people.


“The best slave is the one who thinks he is free.”

― Johann von Goethe