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The Cause of The Skyrocketing Cost of Healthcare

Dr. Ira Kirschenbaum's Mad About Medicine blog


Those of you who are struggling to pay for your generic medicines or wondering why the doctor is charging you a $5.00 co-pay, give some thought to these facts about how our health care dollars are allocated. At the end of this post, there is a list of 23 health companies I found on Forbes.com, what the CEO was paid in 2005, and the average paid to the CEO in the past five years.

Imagine adding vice presidents, Board of Directors, stock holders and the other 200-300 other companies all cashing in on your health to that total at the bottom.

Based on this, the next time you want to argue with your Primary Care doctor's front desk about a $5.00 co-pay, remember that he makes an average of $149,000.00 per year. On the other hand -- using United Healthcare as an example -- your insurance company paid their CEO -- one man -- $324,000,000 over a recent five year period.

If you are uninsured, try calling any one of these 23 CEOs and see if they will give you free insurance.

BTW: 10% of 14.9 billion is 1.4 billion. If basic insurance costs $8,000/year for a family then taking 10% from just these CEO salaries would insure 35,000 Americans a year for five years. That is a lot of people that can be helped just by 23 men. Looking at the companies as a whole that profit from health care, we can probably pay for every uninsured person in this country for decades to come.

The numbers are numbing, which is why we should do something about this.

  • United Health Group
    CEO: William W McGuire
    2005: 124.8 mil
    5-year: 342 mil

  • Forest Labs
    CEO: Howard Solomon
    2005: 92.1 mil
    5-year: 295 mil

  • Caremark Rx
    CEO: Edwin M Crawford
    2005: 77.9 mil
    5-year: 93.6 mil

  • Abbott Lab
    CEO: Miles White
    2005: 26.2 mil
    5-year: 25.8 mil

  • Aetna
    CEO: John Rowe
    2005: 22.1 mil
    5-year:57.8 mil

  • Amgen
    CEO: Kevin Sharer
    2005:5.7 mil
    5-year:59.5 mil

  • Bectin-Dickinson
    CEO: Edwin Ludwig
    2005: 10 mil
    5-year:18 mil

  • Boston Scientific
    CEO:
    2005:38.1 mil
    5-year:45 mil

  • Cardinal Health
    CEO: James Tobin
    2005:1.1 mil
    5-year:33.5 mil

  • Cigna
    CEO: H. Edward Hanway
    2005:13.3 mil
    5-year:62.8 mil

  • Genzyme
    CEO: Henri Termeer
    2005: 19 mil
    5-year:60.7 mil

  • Humana
    CEO: Michael McAllister
    2005:2.3 mil
    5-year:12.9 mil

  • Johnson & Johnson
    CEO: William Weldon
    2005:6.1 mil
    5-year:19.7 mil

  • Laboratory Corp America
    CEO: Thomas MacMahon
    2005:7.9 mil
    5-year:41.8 mil

  • Eli Lilly
    CEO: Sidney Taurel
    2005:7.2 mil
    5-year:37.9 mil

  • McKesson
    CEO: John Hammergen
    2005: 13.4 mil
    5-year:31.2 mil

  • Medtronic
    CEO: Arthur Collins
    2005: 4.7 mil
    5-year:39 mil

  • Merck Raymond Gilmartin
    CEO:
    2005: 37.8 mil
    5-year:49.6 mil

  • PacifiCare Health
    CEO: Howard Phanstiel
    2005: 3.4 mil
    5-year: 8.5 mil

  • Pfizer
    CEO: Henry McKinnell
    2005: 14 mil
    5-year: 74 mil

  • Well Choice
    CEO: Michael Stocker
    2005: 3.2 mil
    5-year: 10.7 mil

  • WellPoint
    CEO: Larry Glasscock
    2005: 23 mil
    5-year: 46.8 mil

  • Wyeth
    CEO: Robert Essner
    2005:6.5 mil
    5-year: 28.9 mil

TOTAL 2005: 559.8 mil

TOTAL 5-Year: 14.9 billion

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REFERENCE: Crowell, M.D. & Cheskin L.J, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Multicenter Evaluation of Health Benefits and Weight Loss on the Medifast Weight Management Program.

REFERENCE: Cheskin, MD, FACP, Mitchell, MS, Lewis, BA, Jhaveri, MD Yep, BS. Johns Hopkins University School of Bloomberg Public Health. Efficacy of 2 Diet Plans Designed for People with Type 2 Diabetes on Weight and Health Measures.

REFERENCE: Lawrence J. Cheskin, Lisa M. Davis, Andrea Hanlon-Mitola, Amy Mitchell, Ami Jhaveri, Mary Yep, Vanessa Mitchell. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Human Nutrition, Department of International Health, Baltimore, MD 21205. Efficacy of Parent-Child Dieting Plans Incorporating Medifast Meal Replacements for Weight Loss. RCT Comparing Balanced Energy Deficit Diets With or Without Meal Replacements for Weight Loss and Maintenance Among Children Dieting Alone or With a Parent.

REFERENCE: Drs. Walker S.C. Poston, C. Keith Haddock, Jennifer E. Taylor, John Foreyt. Effectiveness of Medifast Supplements Combined with Obesity Pharmacotherapy: A Clinical Program Evaluation

REFERENCE: National Institutes of Health: Impaired Capacity to Lose Visceral Adipose Tissue During Weight Reduction in Obese Postmenopausal Women With the Trp64Arg B3- Adrenoceptor Gene Variant.

REFERENCE: Vivienne Matalon, M.D. The Bariatrician Summer 2000. An Evaluation of Weight Loss following a Carbohydrate and Fat Restricted Diet with Appetite Suppressant and Dietary Supplementation.

REFERENCE: L. M. Davis, C. D. Coleman1, W. S. Andersen, L. J. Cheskin. The Effect of Metabolism-Boosting Beverages on 24-hr Energy Expenditure. The Open Nutrition Journal 2008; 2: 37-41.