Internal WellPoint e-mails reveal company increased premiums <\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n
to maintain higher profits<\/a>
ThinkProgress<\/strong>
By Igor Volsky
February 24, 2010<\/div>\n
ThinkProgress<\/strong>
By Igor Volsky
February 24, 2010<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
Today, during a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, Reps. Bart Stupak [D-MI] and Henry Waxman [D-CA] questioned WellPoint CEO Angela Braly about the company’s proposed rate increases in California’s individual health insurance market. The congressmen read from a series of internal company emails which revealed that WellPoint was rising premiums simply to increase its profits:<\/div>\n
- – “The average increase is 23 percent and is intended to return California to a target profits of 7 percent, versus 5 percent this year.” <\/p>\n
– “We’re asking for premiums that would put us $40 million favorable… if we get the increases on time, we will see an opt gain upside of $30 million downgrades and rate cap.”<\/p>\n
– “[W]e needed to reach agreement on filing strategy quickly — specifically in the area of do we file with a cushion allowed for negotiations.”<\/div>\n<\/ul>\n
WellPoint acknowledged setting its increases to keep up with medical costs and maintain a 2% profit, but justified the increases by arguing that the company lost money in the individual market in California. “I don’t mind you making a profit but at the end of the year, 2009 a horrible year, you still made 2 point something billion dollars, and that’s not enough,” Stupak remarked, noting that WellPoint’s high profit margin is the reason “many of us believe in a public option.”<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n
![](\"http:\/\/media3.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/photo\/2010\/02\/21\/PH2010022101780.jpg\")
I watched a piece of the testimony on the Evening News. Angela Braly, CEO of WellPoint, was paid close to $2,000,000 in Salary and Incentive plus 0ver $8,000,000 in Stock Options last year. The company made $2.7 Billion profit with an additional $2 Billion from a Pharma sale. That’s enough for me. It’s like listening to the Hedge Fund executives or the Bank Managers. And I don’t find either the email evidence or the CEO’s Salary mentioned in either the New York Times or the Washington Post, both of which have good coverage of the Killer Whale hunting down and killing its trainer in Florida. I say we let the whale go back out to sea and put WellPoint’s CEO in the Orca’s holding tank. She’s more lethal. <\/div>\n![](\"http:\/\/t1.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:assFcv3pZqj1-M:http:\/\/orcasrule.com\/images\/pics\/orca32.jpg\")
Medical insurance has always been a numbers game I’m sure, but it wasn’t until the late 1980’s that Insurance and Hospital Corporations lost the point of their existence and became "just business." I recall watching it happen but thinking surely someone would stop it. No one did. Wave after wave of "bean counters" armed with Lotus 1-2-3 Spreadsheets invaded medical care and turned it into what it has become – corporate piracy. I know it won’t happen in any of our lifetimes, but I’d be fine with socializing the whole endeavor. The current Medical Insurance, Pharmaceutical Industry, and Hospital Corporation mentalities simply have no place in Medicine. <\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/5\/55\/Health_care_cost_rise.PNG\")
<\/a><\/div>\n