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Kevin Cullen buried the lead on Blue Cross Blue Shield

Yeah, how dare Deval Patrick not excoriate Blue Cross Blue Shield for the $28 million it's paid out to its last two departing CEOs.

But I really wanted to hear more about the guy in Weymouth Cullen gets to at the very end of his column, who had to lend his daughter $2,000 to pay for the surgery on his granddaughter that the giant insurer wouldn't pay. It's an interesting followup to the Herald's report about the guy whose insurance Blue Cross threatened to cut off because his premium payment was 10 cents short. It's stories like those that are going to get the Attorney General (who, unlike the governor, actually oversees charities and non-profits) to maybe do some investigatin'.

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Comments

I've been following this story. One thing struck me as interesting. It seems that on the board you have Bob Haines, President of the Mass. AFL-CIO. On the other end, you have Paul Guzzi of the Chamber of Commerce. It appears that these political opposites(and the others on the board)have no problem putting their philosophies aside when it comes time for payday! Why did the former CEO get millions for failing? I'm a BCBS victim. Now I know why the rates are going up!

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Why did the former CEO get millions for failing?

It's the Ivy League dorm mate circle jerk. They guys are CEO's and also on boards of other companies. They're also usually own majority or preferred stock in these enterprises.

So, they pat each others back, steal from regular shareholders, and jet before the boot comes down.

And both Republican and Democratic politicians are in on the game.

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Yeah, in the words of Pogo: "We have met the enemy, and they are us!"

Keep this one in mind the next time this prince of labor exhorts you to stand fast with "working families" against corporate interests. The grift stays the same, it's only the grifters that change.

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Link above 404ed. Searched "Kevin Cullen" and "Blue Cross" on the Glob page and found nothing.

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My apologies; I managed to screw up the link. It works now.

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I can't believe how ignorant people are bring about this. While the payment of board members and golden parachutes are egregious, they have next to nothing to do with premium increases. Blue cross pays out around 6 billion (yeah, billion) in claims each year. To put it in perspective, that means that every 1/625th of a cent per dollar you've paid has gone to that bonus, which was from a contract written in 2005 anyway.

Percentage-wise, if bcbs paid out 6 million in claims, the bonus would have been 11,000.

The payments are ridiculous but people need to stop acting like that is why costs are going up. The real culprit is the rising cost of healthcare.

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Now explain why premiums, particularly for small business customers, are outstripping cost increases by vast amounts?

Couldn't be your speshul BCBS being ... GREEDY? Or trying to force less profitable people off the system, nooooo.

(My org's pres, a former agency head, raised a stink last year and got lied to and outed their lies to the press so don't lie some more, okay?)

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It's technically correct, of course, and it has been used to justify insane bonuses for bailed out banks, ING, and so forth. It could also be used to justify the ocassional outragous public sector salary, say for a commissioner or department head. But the problem is not the 1/625 of a cent or whatever, but the fact that the dude doesn't deserve that kind of money. The culture of exorbitant financial reward for mediocrity and even failure is a major problem of modern capitalism. Just because the kleptocracy constitutes only .1% of the population doesn't mean it isn't both immoral and dangerous.

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. . . are worth the sorts of money CEO's and CFO's have become accustomed to taking home in the last 30 or so years. There are few people in the world who actually merit being billionaires and we could argue about who those people are- but suffice it to say- they are few. Most egregiously rich people, in my view and experience, are no brighter than you or me- and have contributed nothing either by way of invention or worth- that would merit their wealth. And such mega individual wealth is almost always not by way of a free market- with the larger part of it resting always upon some form of political influence or peer collusion.

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Give me a year at his salary and I'll settle for the $11,000, 'k?

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Where would you start in trying to rein in costs and particularly public budget deficits?

I'm guessing it's probably the 1/6,000,000,025th of a penny for NPR...am I right?

I mean, like you say, let's keep our perspective.

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Blue Cross Blue Shield's rate increase was unconscionable. The main reason for it was becuase their reserves are invested in financial markets, and their losses (due to high exposure of mortgage backed securities and equities) decimated their reserves. So they turn to the insured to fix their problem. I want to yell, "I will not pay for your crisis!"

In the meantime, they make extravagant golden parachute payments to their senior execs (of a so called non-profit organization)without regard to the excess increased financial burden they've put on the insured, up to 40% increase in one year!

It's time to eliminate termination payments to execs of non-profits in Massachusetts. And time to send the banksters who conducted fraud on Wall St to jail.

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