Anger Over Salaries of Health Care Execs

It is not a coincidence that we are paying the most-money per capita of any country in the world for medical care.

Of the 100 highest-paid executives in California, five in the top 30 are executives of National Medical Enterprises, which runs acute care and psychiatric hospitals. One of these five, the highest-paid executive in California, was Richard Eamer, whose compensation for 1991 was $17,551,778--about 600 times that of some nurses employed by his company.

Other executives who received record amounts headed pharmaceutical companies such as Milan Panic of ICN Pharmaceuticals, who was paid a total of $6.1 million in 1991.

The U.S. medical care system is not competitive; it is a monopoly that rips off the rest of us. Patients cannot shop around to compare hospital prices when they have heart attacks or broken bones, nor do they know in advance all the additional charges that will be tacked onto their bills. The price of medicines are out of proportion to what it costs to produce them. Many people cannot afford to pay for medical insurance. Many must work jobs they don’t like so they can obtain medical insurance coverage. Many others people go without.

My brother-in-law, who broke his ankle while playing soccer recently, was charged $17,000 for medical care; $5,000 was paid through team insurance coverage. We don’t know how he will pay the rest.

This system has got to go. We need a law to keep executive compensation in some kind of balance. The medical monopoly rip-off must be stopped. We must change our system, perhaps to a one-payer system such as that in Canada.

ANITA RIVERO

Downey