“Non-profit” except for those at the top

The Dayton Daily News has broken a story about the executive pay at CareSource. Of course, yours truly is hanging his butt out for trouble- since I’ve actually done some work for Caresource in the past- but, let’s get real here.

“CareSource is entirely funded with taxpayer dollars, receiving money from the state-federal Medicaid program for each client who meets its poverty guidelines and enrolls in the HMO”

Translation: they are government workers posing as a private corporation- and paying top dollar to their CEO. She made 6x what the president of the United States made in 2009- all while pushing paperwork for the government. Understand that CareSource doesn’t actually treat anyone- they just take a scrape for administering the paperwork for treating people.

You’d be outraged if your tax dollars paid a trash collector $100,000- but it’s the American Way to let this “CEO” get paid as a millionaire with our tax dollars. Not only could we eliminate CareSource tomorrow- and put this money directly into health care for everyone, but we could hire people who actually deliver health care instead of process papers.

Unbelievably, the company has been allowed to be a for-profit for a couple of years when it suited them- and back to non-profit when it didn’t:

In 2006, no salaries were reported to the IRS because CareSource’s top executives were compensated through a for-profit arm created to expand the HMO’s business footprint into Michigan. And in 2007, CareSource reported that its top five executives earned a total of $3.2 million from its for-profit arm but did not provide individual compensation totals.

Nonprofits are required to file annually with the Internal Revenue Service. The form — called a 990 — is often the only source the public has on a tax-exempt organization’s financial information.

via CareSource changes how it reports salaries to IRS, showing CEO earned $2.9M..

There is also a question of ethics in having Tom Breitenbach CEO of Premier Health Partners on their board of Directors– since Premier is one of the primary providers of actual health care that CareSource contracts for services.

When people knee-jerk about a government run health system- it’s companies like CareSource that give them justification. Here is a “private company” playing with your tax dollars and paying execs big bucks.

We can afford health care for everyone- if we pay doctors to take care of people instead of paying “administrators” to push papers and approve or disapprove care.

Here is the Dayton Grassroots Daily Show on the subject:

Enjoy!

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