This figure can also be found in the Forbes Special Report on CEO compensation. Here one can find that other managed care CEOs got less fabulous, but still formidable compensation, e.g., Howard Phanstiel, PacifiCare, 3.38 million; Edward Hanway, Cigna, $13.3 million; John Rowe, Aetna, $22.2 million; and Larry Glassrock, Wellpoint, $25.0 million.

Elizabeth Edwards, speaking on The Daily Show, used it to support her argument for a public alternative to commercial insurance[. Edwards stressed the importance of restoring competition in health insurance markets noting that at one point, "the President of United Health made so much money, that one of every $700 that was spent in this country on health care went to pay him":

Estimates of McGuire's 2005 compensation range from $59,625,444 [9] to $124.8 million], and the revenue of United Health Care was then $71 billion. It has therefore been suggested that Mrs Edwards may have meant to say that one of every $700 that was spent on United Health Care premiums went to pay McGuire. Yet further, William W. McGuire’s “golden parachute” compensation of over one billion dollars (US$) makes Elizabeth Edwards’ statement closer to the actual ratio she quoted.

William McGuire of UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s leading insurer, was the third-highest paid CEO on the Forbes list. His pay of $124.8 million could cover the average health insurance premiums of nearly 34,000 people….

While workers are having a tougher time making ends meet, CEOs are getting perks worth more than worker paychecks. CEO freeloaders expect perks such as lifetime use of company jets, chauffeured cars, company apartments, club memberships, sports tickets, financial planning, personal assistants and more.

In CEO World, the more money you make, the less you should have to pay for.
For example, former UnitedHealth Group CEO William McGuire received 14.6 million stock options on the same day that UnitedHealth Group’s shares fell to their lowest price for the year. In addition, grants in several other years occurred near the bottom of sharp stock dips. McGuire, of course, denied he ever backdated his options. But the odds of all that occurring by chance were one in 200 million or greater—much worse than his odds of winning the Powerball. The result? Over his 15 years as CEO, stock option backdating helped McGuire accumulate more than $2 billion in stock options.

The problem for McGuire and other backdating CEOs is they may have violated accounting rules, state corporate law, federal securities laws and tax laws. In some cases, like that of former Comverse CEO Kobi Alexander, who fled to Namibia, the U.S. Department of Justice concluded that CEOs committed criminal fraud.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005
How Can a $124.8 Million a Year CEO Make Health Care More Affordable?

An op-ed piece in the Providence Journal about huge pay packages for corporate CEOs mentioned the breath-taking $124.8 million total compensation of United Health Group (parent of United Healthcare) CEO William McGuire. This figure can also be found in the Forbes Special Report on CEO compensation. Here one can find that other managed care CEOs got less fabulous, but still formidable compensation, e.g., Howard Phanstiel, PacifiCare, 3.38 million; Edward Hanway, Cigna, $13.3 million; John Rowe, Aetna, $22.2 million; and Larry Glassrock, Wellpoint, $25.0 million.
McGuire’s compensation was so large as to take a measurable part of this large company’s net income (5%). Or to look at it from a stock-holder’s (and hence, an company owner’s) viewpoint, had McGuire, who is an employee, been only paid a cool million, and this money had been distributed as a dividend, it would amount to about a $0.20 per share dividend. (The current dividend is $0.03 per share.) (See company data available from Forbes as well.)
To look at it from a United employee’s viewpoint, had McGuire, who is an employee, been only paid a cool million, and this money had been distributed to employees, each of the 40,000 employees could have received a bonus larger than $3000.
To look at it from the viewpoint of the health care system, the $124.8 million total compensation of a single United employee could pay the salaries of 833 general internists at current typical salaries. Or the $124.8 million could run one reasonable size community hospital for a year.
United Health Group’s mission statement is “the company directs its resources into designing products, providing services and applying technologies that improve access to health and well-being services; simply the health care experience; promote quality; and make health care more affordable.” (See this fact sheet.) Rather, it seems to be directing a good chunk of its resources into salaries of top management employees. How a $124.8 million CEO salary can be reconciled with a mission to “make health care more affordable” is completely beyond me.

$6.5 Million Retirement? That’s Not Enough for Some CEOs. They Want to Kill Your Retirement Security, Too.
by James Parks, Apr 6, 2006

CEOs continued to undermine working families’ retirement security last year, but they took good care of their own nest eggs. Samuel Palmisano, for one, kicked off a plan to freeze the pensions of IBM’s 329,000 employees by 2008—while racking up a guaranteed retirement package worth $4 million annually and total 2005 compensation of nearly $24 million.

Today, the AFL-CIO released its 2006 Executive PayWatch website featuring case studies of out-of-this-world CEO retirement packages and all-new data on CEO compensation packages. Since the first annual PayWatch site was released in 1997, more than 22 million persons have used the website to track data on CEO pay and the corporate abuses that cause it to soar.

This year’s PayWatch site also enables users to contact the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to urge adoption of new disclosure rules for executive pay packages.

The CEO with the most outrageous retirement package is Henry McKinnell, CEO of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, who leads the Business Roundtable—a major backer of efforts to privatize Social Security. With a $6.5 million annual retirement deal, he sure won’t miss Social Security if it’s gone.

Other kings of the top hat retirement circuit include Exxon Mobile’s Lee Raymond ($6.5 million), AT&T’s Edward Whitacre Jr. ($5.5 million), UnitedHealth Group’s William McGuire ($5.1 million) and The Home Depot’s Robert Nardelli ($3.9 million).

“When it comes to a job and retirement security, there is a double standard and workers are not the ones coming out on top,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka. “Corporate CEOs have been able to rig the rules of the game in their favor and leave workers and their families on the sidelines.”

In 2005, the average CEO of a Standard & Poor’s 500 company received $11.75 million in total compensation, a 3.66 percent increase from 2004. As PayWatch points out, there’s little if any connection between CEO pay and CEO performance. McKinnell, for example, has presided over a nearly 45 percent drop in Pfizer’s stock price over the past six years.

PayWatch’s database of 1,500 CEO pay low-downs is searchable by company name, ticker symbol, industry or total compensation. Here’s a fun feature: Compare your pay to the CEO’s and find out how many hundreds of years it would take you to make that much. Or find out how many thousands of workers could get health or retirement coverage for what the company pays your favorite CEO each year.
been able to rig the rules of the game in their favor and leave workers and their families on the sidelines.”

In 2005, the average CEO of a Standard & Poor’s 500 company received $11.75 million in total compensation, a 3.66 percent increase from 2004. As PayWatch points out, there’s little if any connection between CEO pay and CEO performance. McKinnell, for example, has presided over a nearly 45 percent drop in Pfizer’s stock price over the past six years.

PayWatch’s database of 1,500 CEO pay low-downs is searchable by company name, ticker symbol, industry or total compensation. Here’s a fun feature: Compare your pay to the CEO’s and find out how many hundreds of years it would take you to make that much. Or find out how many thousands of workers could get health or retirement coverage for what the company pays your favorite CEO each year.
http://www.aflcio.org