A million dollars would be lot of money to me, but it’s 1/4,000 for every month in we’re in Iraq.

For a little perspective, 1/4,000 of a $250,000 home is $62.50. It’s literally less than 2 cents for every four people in the United States.

These Americans are your brothers and sisters, your parents and your children. Can’t you have a little compassion?

A WSJ story, about William McGuire, a doctor who stopped practicing in 1986 to take a management job with UnitedHealth Group Inc., one of the largest HMOs in the country.

He’s now the chief executive officer of the corporation, makes $8 million a year in salary plus bonus, has personal use of the company’s private jet and has amassed what the Journal describes as “one of the largest stock options fortunes of all time.”

According to the newspaper, those options total $1.6 billion.

As Patients, Doctors Feel Pinch, Insurer’s CEO Makes a Billion

By GEORGE ANDERS, April 18, 2006; Page A1, The Wall St. Journal

…

Unrealized gains on Dr. McGuire’s options totaled $1.6 billion, according to UnitedHealth’s proxy statement released this month. Even celebrated CEOs such as General Electric Co.’s Jack Welch or International Business Machines Corp.’s Louis Gerstner never were granted so much during their time at the top. Dr. McGuire’s story shows how an elite group of companies is getting rich from the nation’s fraying health-care system. Many of them aren’t discovering drugs or treating patients. They’re middlemen who process the paperwork, fill the pill bottles and otherwise connect the pieces of a $2 trillion industry. The middlemen credit themselves with keeping the health system humming and restraining costs. They’re bringing in robust profits — and their executives are among the country’s most richly paid — as doctors, patients, hospitals and even drug makers are feeling a financial squeeze. Some 46 million Americans lack health insurance.

UnitedHealth’s main business is offering health plans to employers and Medicare beneficiaries. Bigger employers usually pay employees’ medical bills out of their own coffers and hire UnitedHealth to administer the health benefit. Smaller employers pay an annual insurance premium to UnitedHealth in exchange for having the insurer take on the risk of covering employees’ health care. The “risk” business has been a particular gold mine for UnitedHealth and its rivals in recent years. As health-care inflation eased, insurers still raised premiums at double-digit rates. UnitedHealth’s stock price tripled between January 2003 and January 2006, helped by acquisitions, although it has fallen back somewhat since the beginning of this year. UnitedHealth’s net income in 2005 totaled $3.3 billion, nearly four times the figure in 2001.

…

The Journal’s analysis of 12 options grants to Dr. McGuire from 1994 to mid-2002 found that if the options had been randomly dated, the odds of their occurring at such propitious times were about 1 in 200 million. It raised the possibility that the options grants were backdated. Backdating an options grant isn’t necessarily illegal, but civil or criminal actions could be brought if disclosure of the practice were inadequate, securities lawyers say. A UnitedHealth spokesman said the grants were appropriate, but the company’s board is reviewing options-granting procedures.

The arrival of the $1 billion CEO would be a head-turner in any industry. But it’s especially controversial in health care, where “people tend to view each dollar of executive pay as money that isn’t spent on them,” says Jonathan Weiner, a health-policy expert at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. McGuire and his supporters say the U.S. would be in even worse shape if it weren’t for insurers such as UnitedHealth weeding out unnecessary treatments, bargaining with doctors and encouraging patients to seek out the highest-quality care.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114532417401928300.html

Is a problem with our healthcare system the layers of administration and management?

Initially the link to the CNN story provided wouldnt work, now it works but the part quoted isnt in it. The words “foreign fighter pipeline” no longer appear, and the opening paragraph language portarys it as something the terrorists want.

Do you have a snapshot of the orignial story?

Now:
Militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al Qaeda in Iraq group and others “view Iraq as a potential safe haven and are attempting to make it a reality,” said the annual report on worldwide terrorism.

There is a UPI report with the words “foreign fighter pipeline” that carries a far stronger picture than the CNN report, but at least on the internet isnt being run by major news outlets – see, e.g. http://news.monstersandcritics.com/roundups/article_1159187.php/News_Roundup

Iraq Tops U.S. Terrorist Report

WASHINGTON, April 28 (UPI) — A U.S. State Department annual report on terrorism lists Iraq as a ‘foreign fighter pipeline’ to worldwide terrorism.

The Patterns of Global Terrorism report — due to be released Friday — says since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Iraq has become a safe and proven training ground for terrorists.

A senior department official told CNN the report also ranks terrorist groups aligned with al-Qaida a bigger threat than al-Qaida itself.

It says al-Qaida, with leadership spread across the globe because of the war on terror, has inspired splinter groups. The official said bombings last July in London are an example.

Note the portion attributed to CNN about splinter groups posing a greater threat isnt even in the current version available on CNN. Was the CNN report watered down? It at least appears to have been edited in a manner similar to science reports by the Bush administration, but without a copy of the original of course thats just speculation on my part.

“All the other kings said it was death to be a castle here, but I did anyway. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second castle. It sank into the swamp. So I built a third castle. It burned down, fell over then sank into the swamp. But the fourth castle remained, and that’s the one you’ll get son. The strongest castle in these parts.”

“She’s got…huuuuge tracts of land!”

And our favorite part: “Where are you going?” “We’re coming with you.”

Comment by Zookeeper — April 28, 2006 @ 1:00 pm

He’s not George Bush’s poodle.
He’s George Bush’s Scottish Terrier.

Touché!

Even the spinmeisters had to think for 10secs before coming up with an answer to a point-blank question.

The obvious follow-up question is: “what does it signify about Iraq’s stability and security that the country’s new leadership lives behind walls, in the heaviily fortified Green Zone?”

Yup, thats the bit I was refering too.

$1.2 million: The collective debt owed by almost 900 battle-injured soldiers to the Department of Defense

We are in a war. Our President has given tax breaks to the rich. I’d say, those that have given their life, as they knew it, should be given a break. Congress, our President, should actually support our troops and not give it lip service.

Jack Abramoff’s lawyers claim the lobbyist is “broke.”

I’ve always wondered what “broke” means in these case. [Is Ken Lay really broke? I read that Enron execs were building mansions in Texas because they knew their home, their domicile, was safe from creditors and others.]

Does it mean they have 0 assets of any value anywhere in the world, in any form. Somehow I think “broke” means something different to the average American. Does it mean they keep their 15,000 sq ft mansion and all personal belongings, keep their pension(s), benefits, trust funds, foreign bank accounts, etc. And then they always seem to have wealthy connected friends that will give them everything at the drop of a hat… sort of your rich man’s welfare or handout.

Huffingtonpost.com had 3 interesting posts:
Gov’t PR Manipulates Taxpayers With Their Own Money
We Cannot Fight Everyone
What to Do With an Unreachable President?

Is Bush’s plan to propagate us to death so he can do as he pleases, whenever, wherever, at any cost… break laws, not support the Constitution, lie, steal, pollute, grab power & money, etc… He doesn’t actually have to do anything, like work, he’ll just spend billions on PR. Oh boy.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/28/103437/058

A cast of thousands…

Dem Soldier,

Didn’t Bush once tell us that if the Iraqi government asked us to leave, we would? Maybe that will be his exit strategy…let the Iraqis decide for us.

This just makes my week. Why did “All in the Family” just pop into my head?

WTF? Is it just me, or has no one else NEVER had to make a clarification like this?