Hightower Lowdown

HMOs have been yanking health care services out from under the elderly, claiming that the government's Medicare program just isn't paying the companies enough to be profitable.

But hold on. These corporate medical providers actually are quite profitable, with Aetna boasting $848.1 million in profits in its last report, and Cigna hauling in $1.3 billion. Still, if hot shot HMO CEOs feel they're not racking up enough in profits, why don't they look at their own spending policies? I don't mean spending on health care for us patients, but spending on bloated salaries for executives, lavish corporate headquarters, and tassel toed lobbyists.

Aetna's top boss, for example, hiked his pay 115% to more than $8 million in 1998, at the same time he was scheming to raise rates and cut services to Medicare patients.

In addition, USA Today reports that HMOs are spending a billion dollars a year on such items as luxury skyboxes at sports stadiums, wine for the executive suite, parties, flowers, theater tickets, gift baskets, and other goodies—all charged to us taxpayers under the Medicare program. Overall, these wasteful practitioners of corporatized medicine are spending a third of our health care dollars on their own executive and bureaucratic costs.

To learn more about the single payer alternative to the HMO rip off, contact Physicians for a National Health Program on 312 554 0382 .