Saturday, December 19, 2009

Stephen Hemsley home demonstration for single-payer universal healthcare

This important notice was posted to David Shove's "Progressive Calendar:"


From:

Roger Cuthbertson


Subject:

Hemsley home demo 12.19 10am




This Saturday morning (tomorrow) at 10AM there will be a protest on the
ice of Lake Minnetonka in front of the $7.8 million stone mansion of
Stephen Hemsley.

Featured speakers will be Elizabeth Frost, MD, and Joel Albers,
Pharmacist
. Please come. Dress warmly. Plan to hike .7 mi to the mansion
and .7 mi back on the ice. Don't worry. The ice is 6" thick. We will
walk pretty close to shore. People are out on the ice fishing already.

Stephen Hemsley is the CEO of the largest health insurance company in the
United States, United Health Group, headquartered in Minnesota.

Hemsley (I am not going to say, earned) was paid a salary of $3.2 million in 2007,
which is nothing to sneeze at. But his estimated $3/4 billion in stock
options in United Health Group nearly rivals the stunning figure of $1.6
billion of Hemsley's predecessor, William McGuire. McGuire left in scandal
after it was found out many of his stock options were improperly back
dated. Now we find that Hemsley might have had something to do with back
dated stock options, too.


No wonder United Health Group's premiums are so high! No wonder so many
people in this country cannot afford health insurance. Who profits? Who
dies? Help us hold our 5 large banners that say, "DOWN WITH HEALTH
INSURANCE COMPANIES!", "SINGLE PAYER MED CARE FOR ALL!", "HEALTH IS A
HUMAN RIGHT!", and "HOME OF INS. BANDIT, S. HEMSLEY!" Or, bring your own
sign or banner.

By 10AM we will be parked on Ferndale Road, West at the junction with
Shoreline Drive in Orono, just west of Wayzata, MN. For those who would
prefer an escort to this spot, some of us will meet at the Wayzata Beach
parking area, just a short block west of the depot in Downtown Wayzata at
9:45 and caravan to the Ferndale Rd/Shoreline Drive meeting place.

At 10 AM we will begin our hike. Not far from the cars there is a place
where we can get on the lake where we will not be trespassing. The
mansion will be easy to locate. It is on Ferndale Road West, 6 houses
west of the outlet of Peavy Lake, which is just west of Lookout point on
the North Shore of Lake Minnetonka in Wayzata, near the border with Orono.
The total time for this protest will be 2 hours, including hiking time.

We hope you can join us. This event is sponsored by UHCAN-MN.ORG . For
more information, call Roger Cuthbertson, 952-474-2476, or Elizabeth Frost
at 612-724-3995 or UHCAN-MN.ORG at 612-384-0973


More about this event from Elizabeth Frost:

Dear all:

I think most people can now see that health care reform has been hijacked
by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries to further their own agenda
- meaning profit. In the past year the industry has spent something like
600,000 dollars per day in Washington, lobbying for their interests. This
is not OK.

This evening I was feeling depressed and dejected by all the bad new
coming out of the senate regarding health care reform (although I can't
say I am surprised by anything) until I got a phone call from activist
Roger Cuthbertson. He is taking matters into his own hands and protesting
the health care reform fiasco across the Twin Cities, including banner
dropping over highways.

This Saturday I plan to join him in trip to Lake Minnetonka to protest by
the mansion of America's greatest crook - United Health Group CEO Stephen
Hemsley. We plan to bring banners and walk out onto the ice and spend an
our our two showing him how we feel about health care reform.

Please join us! We will have banners available. It will be from
approximately 10am-12pm. Please let me know if you are interested! I
plan to bring snacks and hot chocolate to help make it a good time. There
are ice fishermen on the ice already, and we plan to keep a legal
distance. If not, please keep an eye on the evening news.

Questions? Call me at (612) 724-3995
Elizabeth Frost



This is a very important demonstration and I would encourage the broadest possible participation. More demonstrations of this kind are needed.

In Minnesota a number of phony healthcare schemes are coming out of the State Legislature all aimed to bolster the political fortunes of the Republican and Democratic candidates running for governor--- none of these proposals would solve this healthcare mess.

What we need in this country is a no-fee/no-premium, comprehensive, all-inclusive universal healthcare system which incorporates a single-payer universal healthcare system based upon the Canadian healthcare system together with a vastly expanded national public healthcare system combining the best features of VA, the Indian Health Service together with a vastly expanded Public Health Service. The single-payer system would be publicly funded through an employer/employee payroll tax just like Social Security, publicly administered with continued private delivery of healthcare services until a fully public health care system could be phased in. The public healthcare system would complement the single-payer system but would immediately make free healthcare available to the forty-five million Americans presently without health insurance because they can't afford the high price of healthcare insurance or without adequate access to healthcare... this National Public Healthcare would be publicly financed, publicly administered and publicly delivered just like the Indian Health Service and the National Public Health Service.

Any country that can afford to fight wars in three countries, maintain over 800 military bases dotting the globe in over 150 countries can afford to provide healthcare for its own people.

We need to serve notice on Barack Obama and the Democrats:

No peace; no votes.

No real progressive healthcare reform; no votes.

This is about accountability which is fundamental to democracy and the American people have spoken in one very clear voice over and over again:

We want healthcare not imperialist wars.



A little dope on Stephen Hemsley from Forbes:

http://people.forbes.com/profile/stephen-j-hemsley/82872

Stephen J. Hemsley

Director, President and Chief Executive Officer
UnitedHealth Group, Inc.
Minnetonka , MN
Sector: HEALTHCARE / Health Care Plans
Officer since January 1997
56 Years Old
Mr. Hemsley is President and Chief Executive Officer of UnitedHealth Group and has served in that capacity since November 2006. He has been a member of the Board of Directors since February 2000. Mr. Hemsley joined the Company in 1997 as Senior Executive Vice President. He became Chief Operating Officer in 1998, was named President in 1999, and served as President and Chief Operating Officer from 1999 to November 2006.
Forbes Rankings
269th on the Forbes Executive Pay in 2009
UnitedHealth Group - 104th on the Forbes Global 2000 in 2009
346th on the Forbes Executive Pay in 2008
UnitedHealth Group Forbes 400 Best Big Companies in 2008
UnitedHealth Group - 111st on the Forbes Global 2000 in 2008
See All Rankings >
Compensation for 2008
Salary $1,300,000.00
Bonus $0.00
Restricted stock awards $0.00
All other compensation $119,023.00
Option awards $ $0.00
Non-equity incentive plan compensation $1,822,019.00
Change in pension value and nonqualified deferred compensation earnings $0.00
Total Compensation $3,241,042.00
Options Granted
Grant
Date All other stock awards (# of shares of stocks or units) Number of securities underlying options Exercise
or base
price Percent of total options granted in fiscal year Grant date fair value of stock and option awards See More
01/31/2006 - - $59.42 0% $3,054,000.00
05/02/2005 - 250,000 $47.34 1% $ -


Expiration date 05/02/2015
Value of options potential value 5% $7,442,968.00
Value of options potential value 10% $18,861,942.00



Another story:


UnitedHealth Group's Stephen Hemsley - CEO Compensation
May 14, 2009 — 4:11pm ET | By Dan Bowman

Stephen Hemsley
CEO compensation
UnitedHealth Group
UHG
Stephen Hemsley - UnitedHealth Group

Total Compensation: $3,241,042

Details: An $895 million class-action lawsuit over stock-option back dating aside, Hemsley still manages to make the cut for this list at No. 10. The UHG CEO's base salary was $1.3 million in 2008, to go along with a non-equity incentive plan compensation worth just over $1.8 million and "other compensation" amounting to slightly more than $119,000.

Hemsley's other compensation was a combination of the company matching his contributions under the 401(k) plan and the company matching contributions under his executive savings plan. According to the SEC, "in May 2006, the amount of Hemsley's supplemental retirement benefit was frozen based on his current age and average base salary and converted into a lump sum of $10,703,229." Because of this, "there was no increase in the benefit payable to Mr. Hemsley under his supplemental retirement benefit" in 2008.



Read more: http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/unitedhealth-groups-stephen-hemsley-ceo-compensation/2009-05-14#ixzz0a9AVhdF7