Written By : TrogloPundit

Senate Democrats target pay of health insurance executives:

Senate Democrats will offer an amendment this weekend to curb the pay of executives at health insurance companies that benefit from federal subsidies, fueling the growing feud with the powerful industry.

Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) have sponsored an amendment that would prohibit health insurance companies from deducting more than $400,000 in executive compensation per individual. The cap would apply to companies that earned 25 percent or more of their income from Americans who buy insurance from government-created exchanges.

So it doesn’t directly limit executive pay: it limits company tax deductions for executive pay over $400,000.

Later in the story:

Lincoln noted that if healthcare reform legislation becomes law, insurance companies would receive millions of new customers.

“Our amendment will make sure that premiums these new enrollees are spent on better care and not executive salaries,” she said.

That’s assuming that companies who are currently out of compliance will be able to get into compliance. If they can’t – meaning their payrolls stay largely the same – then this provision will cost them more.

And, yes, I get it: how very obscene to make so much money, right? Right. Let’s punish them with more taxes.

The result of this amendment, should it become law: less money will go into “better care,” because it will cost the company more taxes to meet their payrolls. If a significant number of companies are affected, it’ll have the exact opposite effect that its authors intend.

Do those execs really deserve such fat paychecks? Hell if I know, and the question is moot anyway. They’re getting those fat paychecks. Instead of being jealous, let’s all try to figure out how we can get them, too.

I suppose we could branch off onto how this is just more evidence that there’s no such thing as private property anymore: you can’t simply create a product, make that product, and sell that product for however much people are willing to pay, even if that means bigtime profits for you. Especially if that means bigtime profits for you. The bigger you get, see, the more chance the government will want its pound of flesh. And they’ll get it, whether you like it or not. Because it’s theirs.

0