You could even say he made a Killingsworth!
"Blue Cross CEO got $8.6m in exit deal; In frugal times, critics see excess" by Robert Weisman, Globe Staff / March 2, 2011
Cleve L. Killingsworth, who abruptly resigned last March as chief executive of the nonprofit Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, collected $8.6 million in compensation from the state’s largest health insurer in 2010.
The rich package — which included $1.4 million in severance pay, with more money to follow — was detailed in a Blue Cross filing with the state Division of Insurance yesterday. It touched off a volley of criticism at a time when government and business officials, including Blue Cross’s leaders, have been struggling to restrain health care costs.
In a statement yesterday, the insurer’s former chairman said for the first time that the board negotiated terms of Killingsworth’s departure — suggesting both sides thought it was time for him to leave.
The $8.6 million that Killingsworth, 58, took with him is a combination of the $273,040 salary he received for his 2 1/2 months at the insurer last year; a $922,480 bonus for his work in 2009; and $7.4 million in additional compensation, according to the regulatory filing.
This when they LOST MONEY?
That additional money represents the severance and retirement payments that accrued over his six years at Blue Cross, including almost five years as chief executive. Much of the retirement pay had been reported previously.
But the $1.4 million severance paid out last year was less than half of what Killingsworth will eventually receive. The board of Blue Cross also agreed to pay him $1.8 million this year and $925,000 in 2012, bringing his total severance to more than $4 million, according to the insurer.
This as they are putting the patients on "global payment" budgets!
Message in Massachusetts: DO NOT GET SICK even if it kills you.
Killingsworth’s tenure at Blue Cross, which has nearly 3 million members, was marked by efforts to address skyrocketing medical costs by launching a “global payment’’ pilot program, under which health care providers are given an annual budget and incentives to keep patients healthy and out of the hospital....
So guys like him can collect a bigger check.
The insurer stumbled financially in recent years, recording back-to-back operating losses totaling nearly $215 million in 2009 and 2010....
And yet this guy was pulling down big bonuses and still collecting hundreds of thousands, huh?
Some critics said it was reminiscent of the package awarded Killingsworth’s predecessor, William Van Faasen, who received $16.4 million in retirement benefits in 2006....
Even better times, right?
Related: The Massachusetts Model: Blue Cross Turns Green For Killingsworth
Hey, at least the CEOs wallet is healthy. Doesn't that make you happy?
Attorney General Martha Coakley, who investigated Van Faasen’s pay and pressured Blue Cross to separate the jobs of chairman and chief executive, said in a statement yesterday that her office is monitoring compensation practices at health care companies. Yesterday’s filing on Killingsworth’s pay “is yet further evidence of the importance of that work,’’ she said.
As the big paychecks and payouts continue.
With all due respect, this woman has to be one of the most useless AGs that has ever existed. She trails behind on all the corruption cases, and business as usual continues in this state.
Oh, I forgot, she took a couple of ¢hump ¢hange payoffs from the Wall Street mortgage fraud crowd and she is out in front on gay marriage, yaaaay!
Starting under Killingsworth and continuing with Andrew Dreyfus, the current chief executive, Blue Cross has been pressing doctors and hospitals to limit what they charge for medical care, while working to trim its own costs. It has eliminated 450 jobs through attrition and layoffs since 2008 while reducing expenses in areas ranging from real estate to information technology.
I guess that is why the CEO pukes got "rewarded," huh?
But the millions of dollars given to Killingsworth threaten to overshadow efforts by Blue Cross and others to rein in medical costs, which have crippled businesses, municipalities, and workers, critics said....
Oh, who cares about them?
--more--"
Related: Rising market lifts big 3 Mass. insurers
Yeah, their investments(?) paid off, and a bunch of other CEOs also $cored a big ¢hunk of ¢hange.
Also see: A Healthy Insult For the American People
The Massachusetts Model: Municipal Health Mess
Towns to Pay Health Tax For Public Servants
Thanks for being so generous, taxpayers.
Stay healthy now! I think you know why.
