Response to C.Conover's response to W.Potter's outrage at CEO compensation packages.

It started with an article by Wendell Potter bemoaning extravagant and increasing CEO compensation packages.  Rising to Wendell's challenge Chris Conover over at Forbes wrote an article where he takes CEO pay and divides it among all the employees.  It's a great argument and I'm sure his math holds.  

But, Conover deftly skips over the reason for the outrage with his little math trick. First Mr. Potter:

Skyrocketing Salaries for Health Insurance CEOs 

By Wendell Potter, Center for Public Integrity | Commentary | June 10, 2014 

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/24280-skyrocketing-salaries-for-health-insurance-ceos 

If health insurance companies announce big premium increases on policies for 2015, I hope regulators, lawmakers and the media will look closely at whether they are justified, especially in light of recent disclosures of better-than-expected profits in 2013, rosy outlooks for the rest of this year and soaring CEO compensation.

Almost all of the publicly traded health insurers reported big increases in revenue and profits last year. The big winners have been the top executives of those companies, led by Mark Bertolini, CEO of Aetna, the nation’s third largest health insurer. Bertolini’s total compensation of $30.7 million in 2013 was 131 percent higher than in 2012. … {read on}

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Mr. Conover's retort:

What If We Confiscated CEO Compensation For Large Health Insurers And Redistributed It To Members? 

Chris Conover | March 31, 2016

Physician suicides, courtesy of our profits driven medical industry.

These past few days I’ve been spending my spare time trying to learn more about Dr. Tom Horiagon MD, MoccH and his conflict with the Colorado Board of Medicine, or more accurately with some powerful bureaucrats who seem to think they are above the law.

One of the things I was curious about was why he become involved with Colorado Physician Help Program (CPHP) in 2011 and then with the Center for Personalized Education for Physicians (CPEP).  Embarrassingly someone like me, who knows little of the state of today’s medical industry, might first suspect drug or alcohol dependence.  It had been gnawing at me so I wrote him another email asking him about it.

His answer blindsided me: 

In 2011 I was an intensivist at St Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction and I worked hours that were so intolerably long, I was not getting home for days on occasion, needed IV's to remain upright and that sort of thing.  I wrote a letter to my colleagues at Western Colorado Lung Center stating that my condition was deteriorating and I needed a change in schedule or format or contract or something.  My colleagues took the letter to St. Mary's Hospital administration who immediately convened a committee to try to find something wrong with my patient care.  

They worked in secret for year and finally presented me with a list on concerns never raised before (except one I discussed), and initiated a quasi-legal process to exclude from the hospital staff and report me to the state board.  I became suicidal, never had an attorney help, and "lost" the fair hearing.  I started making pretty significant suicide efforts and I reached out to CPHP for help.  I closed my practice and moved back to my home in the Front Range.

Later he added:

Physician suicide is VERY frequently precipitated by these board actions (see Pam Wible MD or Michael Langan MD or Kernan Manion MD on this topic).

That sent me back to the internet and the only way to describe what I found is to share it.  I keep thinking this is what the corporate obsession with profits has achieved for USA’s medical arts.  Time to make a course change, reject corporate bonus packages and refocus medicine on healing !

 Vote Yes On Heath Care Reform Amendment 69

ColoradoCare

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400 Doctors Commit Suicide Every Year

Published by PhysicianForFairness on May 14, 2014 | < 3 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XIZwws-s4U

Dr. Pamela Wible from Oregon explains that 400 doctors commit suicide every year. 

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I sent Dr. Horiagon a copy of this before posting it here and received the following reply which is worth adding before continuing.  

I find it further indication of Dr. Horiagon solid good character and professionalism.

"Go with it.  Please note that after all these events, I became certified in sleep medicine.  

To my knowledge, I am the only physician simultaneously certified in occupational medicine and sleep medicine.  

This point adds to the irony."
TMH

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Physician Burnout

(Visit: http://www.uctv.tv/) Elizabeth Bromley, MD, PhD, reviews recent data on burnout, depression and suicide in physicians, with particular emphasis on the work-related factors that appear to contribute to physician distress. Series: "UCLA Department of Pediatrics Grand Rounds" [Health and Medicine] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 28597]

 Elizabeth Bromley, MD | Aug 6, 2014 | 53 minutes

Published by University of California Television (UCTV) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4ETqcPIwi0

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Physician Suicide: 
The Role of Hopelessness, Helplessness and Defeat.

Michael Lawrence Langan, MD | Jun 23, 2016

Colorado Medical Board adjusts policy 40-3 Physician Patient Relationship

In doing more research I found this example of the subtle way that our Colorado Medical Board (CMB) is slowly dehumanizing our medical system and evolving it into a corporate industry.

My source is “The Colorado Medical Board Abolished The Hippocratic Duties” written by Dr. Horiagon MD MOccH October 10th, 2015

He starts his story: 

“In the wake of complaints about Colorado physicians involved in occupational medicine and other types of "forensic" practice who violated the Colorado Medical Practice Act Policy 40-3 addressing the doctor-patient relationship, the Colorado Medical Board, without much notice, essentially eliminated the duties embodied in the Hippocratic (and other professional medical oaths) to accommodate corporate interests.”

Then he presents the before and after of CMB 40-3 Policy Statement and I must say it’s creepy the way the thing got artfully watered down.  (Green background represents the old policy statement, pink is the revised version.)

Here is the original policy:

40-3 Policy Statement Regarding the Physician/Patient Relationship

Date Issued:

11/13/97

Date(s) Revised:

7/1/10

And here is the new policy:

40-3 Policy Statement Regarding the Provider/Patient

Date Issued: 11/13/97

Date(s) Revised: 7/1/10; 8/20/15

Purpose: To clarify the Colorado Medical Board’s position concerning the physician/patient relationship

Purpose: To clarify the Colorado Medical Board’s definition of, and position concerning the provider/patient relationship

POLICY: The following statement reflects the policy of the Colorado Medical Board regarding the physicians it licenses.

POLICY: The Colorado Medical Board (“Board”) adopts the following policy regarding the provider patient

relationship:

A Colorado physician has both medical-legal and ethical obligations to his or her patients. These are well established in both law and professional tradition. 

The prevailing model of medical practice, as it is implemented by some plans, may result in an inappropriate restriction of the physician's ability to practice quality medicine. This may create negative consequences for the public. It is incumbent that physicians take those actions they consider necessary to assure that the procedures in question do not adversely affect the care that they render to their patients

{Why would the fundamental principles summarized in that paragraph be eliminated?}

Colorado Open Records Act pries into Pinnacol Assurance’s dirty laundry

 and they don't like it.  Not much to add to this one, it speaks volumes by itself.

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Judge orders Pinnacol to comply with CORA on golf trip

Joseph Boven  |  August 20, 2010

http://www.coloradoindependent.com/59990/judge-orders-pinnacol-to-comply-with-cora-on-golf-trip

After suing KMGH Channel 7 to block a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) inquiry into expenses related to an “extravagant” golf trip to Pebble Beach, Calif., Pinnacol Assurance was told Thursday by a Denver District Court judge that the state workers’ compensation giant should adhere to the same CORA requirements as any other public entity.

“This is the right decision under the law and the right decision for the people of Colorado,” said Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora, who testified before the court Thursday. “If we learned anything over the past year, it is that Pinnacol needs to answer to injured workers, to the businesses it serves, and to taxpayers about how it does business, just like any governmental agency. I’m glad the courts agreed.”

Carroll serves on the Legislative Audit Committee that released Pinnacol’s financial and performance audit in June. That report found numerous faults with Pinnacol’s procedures and practices.

Al Tompkins explains how NPR and ProPublica exposed unequal workers’ comp system

Al Tompkins at poynter.org tells us about the background story to Michael Grabell's "Insult to Injury" series which looks into how certain self-interests have stealthily been eroding state workers comp programs.  Always seeming to put the workers interests last and executive incentives first.  It's a frightening trend that will continue without an engaged public that stands up and says enough is enough.  We deserve fair and available health care!  Vote Yes on Amendment 69.

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How NPR and ProPublica exposed America’s unequal workers’ compensation system

By Al Tompkins • April 12, 2016 Last updated by Kristen Hare April 12, 2016

http://www.poynter.org/2016/how-npr-and-propublica-exposed-americas-unequal-workers-compensation-system/405902/