Hightower Lowdown

Sports writers had all but ceded the coveted "Corporate Greedhead Trophy" to the Wall Street Barons this year, but-- Holy Cow--here come the Health Care Insurance Giants!

To paraphrase my old high-school football coach, "when the going gets ugly, the ugly get going"--and our country's five largest health-insurance corporations are definitely making a run for the trophy. They recently stunned greed-watchers with an announcement that they had scored record profits in 2009, totaling $12.2 billion. Wow--that's a 56% hike in profits over the previous year for United Health, Wellpoint, Aetna, Humana, and Cigna!

Wait, that's not all. The Insurance Giants also booted 2.7 million Americans out of their health plans last year, leaving these older and sicker customers in the corporate dust. Then, in a power play, three of the five Giants shifted more of their customers' premiums out of providing medical care and into corporate profits, executive salaries, and administrative overhead.

But the most spectacular play was a Hail Mary pass by Anthem Blue Cross, a California subsidiary of Wellpoint. With the company enjoying a 91% increase in profits, its Anthem unit suddenly demanded a 39% rate increase--a price hike 10 times more than the rise in the actual cost of health care. What a move! Still, it won't be easy for the upstart Insurance Giants to out-ugly the more sophisticated Wall Street Barons. But the great thing about the corporate league is that competition to be the number-one national greedhead is always fierce --and insurance is definitely in the running.