Quirks in the reporting of executive pay at health insurers
Still, the reports offer a rare glimpse behind the curtain at companies -- especially firms that are not publicly traded, such as
Even in the case of publicly traded companies, the state insurance department compensation filings, compiled into a searchable database by The Inquirer, go deeper into executive ranks than the pay disclosures in proxy statements for publicly traded companies.
Given the power of stock-based compensation, it was no surprise that chief executives of publicly traded companies topped the Inquirer's list. The biggest compensation package in 2017 went to
The most glaring weakness in the filings from the perspective of assessing overall compensation practices is that the
Some make that disclosure. But others follow a different approach permissible under the disclosure rules. They list only portions of overall pay attributed to specific subsidiaries -- and only the compensation paid by certain regulated subsidiaries at that.
"No consumer is able to find out what the price of their hospital procedure is going to be until they go to the hospital and get the bill. No one knows what prescription drugs really cost because the pharmacy benefit managers hide the ball and make those negotiations secret," Balber said. "This is just another example of opacity in health care spending that's helping drive up costs."
The confusion sown by the flexible rules is shown in the case of
In its state filings, UPMC disclosed pay for her of
However, UPMC's public tax returns shows that Holder's total compensation in 2016 was
UPMC had
Like UPMC,
No further information is available. Capital's tax returns are not public, and it is not publicly traded.
The two biggest
Another problem with the information reported to the insurance departments is that sets of executives included in the filings are not comparable because some companies include their overall CEO and others don't.
But three other major publicly traded firms,
However, UPMC's public tax returns report that
It's not clear if that was his total pay at Highmark, which had
Under a bill introduced last year in the
Regulators in
The
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