Quote Originally Posted by mjs View Post
BCBS of Michigan covers 65% of Michigan's insured and assuming Michigan follows the national coverage average of 86%, that means it covers 5.6 million Michiganders. That means each person covered by BCBS of Michigan pays only 16 cents a year for Loepp's salary and 30 cents a year for his total compensation package.
first, you are assuming things not in evidence [[assuming michigan has the same coverage as the national average with the highest unemployment rate is really a stretch)

BCBS of Michigan has 9000 employees. Using $80k as the average cost of a BCBS worker, he gets paid as much as twenty employees.
where are you getting that $80k? seems unlikely

So, if he can cut enough wasted time to eliminate just 20 out of 9000 positions, he's justified his cost.
another unsubstantiated assumption

They had $19.4 billion in revenue in 2007 so his 2008 pay would be 0.0085% of that. A cost savings of 0.0085% justifies his pay. If a move of his cuts costs by 1%, the savings would cover his salary in just 3 days.
that very revenue stream is why bcbsmi is under investigation re their not-for-profit status, and the moves they have made include increasing denial of coverage, thereby reducing costs at the expense of lives, another part of the investigation, and your rationale for his pay simply solidifies my point


sorry, bcbs is NOT a "good actor" in the current situation

Do you really believe these guys can't run an HMO for 0.0085% less than a large government beauracracy?
they certainly haven't shown an ability to do so so far. their admin costs are WAY higher than the govt run health care system, and the govt. run systems conistently show a higher satisfaction level in consumer surveys, and those HMOs are the ones restricting procedures and restricting access to doctors to those they select to be "in network" and then they are the ones getting between patient and doctor