The un- and underinsured folks waiting 15 hours in the nighttime cold for medical attention in Oakland might want to send a note off to ex-Aetna CEO Ron Williams to see if he can help them pay for care.
He could probably spare a dime, brother, for their care -- he just earned the paltry sum of $72 million dollars last year.
Let me repeat: ex-Aetna CEO Ron Williams, who once whined to President Obama that a public option would be unfair, earned $72 million dollars last year, according to the Hartford Courant.
More on this outrage below the fold.
Here are the gory details:
Former Aetna CEO Ronald A. Williams was compensated $72 million in 2010, his last year on the job, including $14.3 million in stocks that vest later and depend on performance.
The largest source of pay for Williams was $50.4 million in value realized through the exercise of options that were granted in 2001, and would have expired in early 2011. He also received $1.1 million in salary, $2.75 million in incentive pay, an additional $2.3 million in pension value and other compensation of $299,838.
Williams, 61, stepped down as chief executive officer on Nov. 29, but remained chairman until his retirement on Friday.
Well, now you know why 61-year old Ron didn't want a public option -- it would have led Aetna stock to tank, and, you know, maybe have caused him to earn only $30 or $40 million upon stepping down as the incompetent CEO -- Aetna shares did not do well during William's term -- of one of America's most incompetent and loathed insurers.
Perhaps Williams can best be remembered for his efforts to reduce "unprofitable business" -- meaning raising premiums on sick people, and small businesses with sick employees, until they were forced to drop coverage that was actually forcing poor Aetna to pay out medical claims:
Williams, formerly an executive with Wellpoint, became Aetna's No. 2 executive under former CEO Jack Rowe in March 2001. Williams, the lower-key personality of the two, was the main architect of Aetna's restructuring efforts, during which the company reduced unprofitable business and set the stage for growth.
In 2009, Aetna forced 600,000 people to drop their coverage in order to increase profits:
In a third-quarter earnings conference call in late October, officials at Aetna announced that in an effort to improve on a less-than-anticipated profit margin in 2009, they would be raising prices on their consumers in 2010. The insurance giant predicted that the company would subsequently lose between 300,000 and 350,000 members next year from its national account as well as another 300,000 from smaller group accounts.
"The pricing we put in place for 2009 turned out to not really be what we needed to achieve the results and margins that we had historically been delivering," said chairman and CEO Ron Williams. "We view 2010 as a repositioning year, a year that does not fully reflect the earnings potential of our business. Our pricing actions should have a noticeable effect beginning in the first quarter of 2010, with additional financial impact realized during the remaining three quarters of the year.
Excuse my French, but on my freaking God -- this is absolute insanity!
Call Ron Williams a greedy schmuck, call him a profiteer, call him an investment banker (health insurers are just pseudo-investment banks that profit off of investing premium dollars), call him a shrewd businessman, but don't you dare ever call Ron Williams a leader in health care. He has done nothing to help improve the health of the public of the United States of America -- he has only worked to destroy this country and its people. And he did it while laughing all the way to the bank.
It's time to put companies like Aetna and CIGNA, and their greedy leaders like Ron Williams, out of business. Nobody in America should have to pay even just one cent of their health care dollar to profiteers like Williams.
We need single-payer, universal health care. Let's start in California and Vermont, and then let's spread humane, non-profit health care for all citizens throughout this great country.
America deserves better than Aetna. It deserves better than Ron Williams.
Change means kicking overpriced CEOs and their immoral, unethical insurance companies to the curb.