House Panel Asks Health Insurers for Executive Pay, Other Financials

A House committee with jurisdiction over health care reform legislation has sent letters to more than 50 major commercial health insurers asking them to identify by name each executive who earned at least $500,000 a year in any year from 2003 to 2008.

The letter, signed by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and several other Democratic panel members, asks for salary information for those individuals, as well as bonuses and the fair value of stock and option awards, among other things.

The letter also requests premium payments, claims payments, sales expenses, administrative expenses and profits for 2005 to 2008.

The letter says the insurers should break down the information by such categories as self-funded employer coverage, insured employer coverage, individual coverage and government segments, including Medicare and Medicaid.

In addition, the letter asks the insurers to detail the money they have spent on conferences held outside their facilities since 2007.

The letter says the information is needed as part of the committee’s examination of “compensation and other business practices in the health insurance industry.”

The letter requests the information by September 14, though the committee has no legal right to force the disclosure of the information.

Filed by Jerry Geisel of Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

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