Graft

Today I heard on the radio that UnitedHealth Group posted first quarter earnings this year of over $800,000,000.00!

Well done.

That's eight hundred million dollars if you lost track of the zeros. The sad thing is, UnitedHealth Group isn't a hospital, or doctors, nurses, not a medical equipment fabricator. UnitedHealth Group is an insurance company. They are an insurance company that stands to profit 3.2 billion dollars this year.

Billion, with a "B"

The sad thing is, this isn't an investment column.

The CEO of said company last year accumulated stock options worth in excess of $1 billion dollars.

That's a lot of lattes.

So, just for the record, because of this country's current stand on national health care in the first three months of this year $800,000,000.00 that could have actually gone for health care went into the pockets on insurance companies.

That's just sick. But wait, there's more!

Apparently, a large chunk of these profits come courtesy of the new Medicare Part D public/private partnership for the purchase of prescription drugs. You know, the one that said that Medicare couldn't negotiate for better prices. The one with the deadline that scared everyone in ASAP so they wouldn't have to pay a late fee. That one.

If there were any doubt that what this congress and this administration called Medicare reform was actually a big, wet, sloppy blow job to industry I have 800,000,000 examples to clarify the question.

If there were any doubt that these jackals should not be let anywhere near the social security program, I think we have 800,000,000 good reasons to convince us.

And in case you didn't connect the dots, that a big chunk of the money came from Medicare means that the money that went into the corporate pockets...

... it came out of ours.