Bigotry Against the Obese by Leaders of Massachusetts General Hospital and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts?

I am amplifying a post by Roy Poses entitled "Why Pretend An Advertising Executive and Chamber of Commerce Leader Are Public Health Experts?".

In that post, Dr. Poses noted a lack of relevant professional credentials in executives making profoundly misinformed and indeed cruel statements about the obese:

Obesity as a public health problem has been the subject of considerable discussion. So that luminaries from the prestigious Partners Healthcare system and Massachusetts Blue Cross Blue Shield would weigh in on the issue at a public meeting should surprise no one. But see this report by the Boston Herald:

When asked about rising health-care costs, Jack Connors - chairman of the Partners chain, which includes Mass. General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals - said yesterday, 'Taking care of yourself starts at home.'

'What happened to individual responsibility?' Connors said at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce breakfast at the Westin Boston Waterfront. 'Why is obesity such an epidemic (when) we all know that a big part of being healthy is exercising and eating the right food?'

Blue Cross Blue Shield Chairman Paul Guzzi echoed Connors’ attitude yesterday.

'What is the responsibility of the individual?' said Guzzi, who as the chamber’s chief executive hosted Senate President Therese Murray’s speech on health care yesterday, despite his dual role as Blue Cross chairman.

Dr. Poses then went on to point out the lack of these executives' appropriate credentials to be making such statements.

In a Dec. 2009 post I'd addressed related issues:

Diversity Nightmare And Federal Antidiscrimination Laws: Cleveland Clinic CEO Delos M. Cosgrove Would Proudly Discriminate Against Fat People

The following stunning quote appeared in the Nov. 27, 2009 Newsweek article "The Hospital That Could Cure Health Care" about the Cleveland Clinic:

[Cleveland Clinic president and CEO Dr. Delos M. Cosgrove, a former cardiac surgeon] has even taken on the most intractable driver of American health-care costs: Americans. Having already banned the hiring of smokers (a dictate enforced by urine tests for nicotine), Cosgrove declared this year that if it weren't illegal under federal law, he would refuse to hire fat people as well. The resulting outcry led him to apologize for "hurtful" comments. But he has not backed down from his belief that obesity is a failure of willpower, which can be attacked by the same weapons used to combat smoking: public education, economic incentives, and sheer exhortation.

My thoughts come from the perspective of a former fitness-for-duty evaluator and drug testing officer (Medical Review Officer) for the regional transit authority in a very large city, and a hiring manager in the hospital and pharmaceutical sectors. I find a profoundly discriminatory statement that a hospital CEO would "refuse to hire fat people" if he could get away with it, and that he refuses to hire smokers and forces people (presumably candidates) to take a urine nicotine test, totalitarian and highly abhorrent.

The attitudes of these executives show a near-complete ignorance of this disease and its causes and treatment.

The attitudes also seem to show simple bigotry.

In Connors' case, his statements also show ignorance of his own hospital, Mass General.

From the website of the MGH Weight Center, realistic and compassionate attitudes about obesity:

Obesity, or excess body fat, is a serious medical problem now affecting one-third of all American adults and 20% of American children and adolescents. Even mild obesity increases a person's risk of having diabetes, heart disease, respiratory disorders, liver disease, arthritis, certain cancers, and other medical conditions. Overweight people have tried hundreds of ways to lose weight, from expensive commercial programs and risky drugs to unusual diets and exercise regimens.

"Recent discoveries about the genetic and physiological causes of obesity, along with the rapid development of pharmacological opportunities, have generated hope and excitement among patients and their families, their physicians and the scientific community. Massachusetts General Hospital has assembled the resources and outstanding professionals so that we can provide state-of-the-art treatment and work to find a cure for this challenging medical problem."

Lee M. Kaplan, MD, PhD Director

Overweight and obesity, like many other chronic medical problems, require specialized treatment. We believe that weight disorders must be treated by compassionate and knowledgeable professionals who take advantage of the latest scientific developments and tailor treatment to each patient's individual needs.

In that regard, I wrote Dr. Kaplan an email:

Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 7:52 AM
To: kaplan@helix.mgh.harvard.edu
Cc: Miriam@cswd.org; Lynn@cswd.org; billfabrey@amplestuff.com

Re:  Bay State hospital and insurance heavies blames
fat-slob consumers for heath problems

Dear Dr. Kaplan,

I am a physician and advocate for the best healthcare, in my case through excellence in health IT. However, I am also an advocate for another cause - antidiscrimination against the obese.

As my colleague Roy Poses of Brown wrote at the blog of the Foundation for Integrity and Responsibility in Medicine, Heathcare Renewal:

Why Pretend An Advertising Executive and Chamber of Commerce Leader Are Public Health Experts?

Obesity as a public health problem has been the subject of considerable discussion. So that luminaries from the prestigious Partners Healthcare system and Massachusetts Blue Cross Blue Shield would weigh in on the issue at a public meeting should surprise no one. But see this report by the Boston Herald:

When asked about rising health-care costs, Jack Connors - chairman of the Partners chain, which includes Mass. General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals - said yesterday, 'Taking care of yourself starts at home.'

'What happened to individual responsibility?' Connors said at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce breakfast at the Westin Boston Waterfront. 'Why is obesity such an epidemic (when) we all know that a big part of being healthy is exercising and eating the right food?'

Blue Cross Blue Shield Chairman Paul Guzzi echoed Connors’ attitude yesterday.

'What is the responsibility of the individual?' said Guzzi, who as the chamber’s chief executive hosted Senate President Therese Murray’s speech on health care yesterday, despite his dual role as Blue Cross chairman.

It seems Connors and Guzzi are calling obese people irresponsible, in effect, lazy slobs. Roy also noted that both your Chairman Connors and Guzzi lack healthcare credentials and therefore any understanding of the causes and challenges of treating obesity.

I had addressed this issue in a Healthcare Renewal post of my own, in my Dec. 2009 post "Diversity Nightmare And Federal Antidiscrimination Laws: Cleveland Clinic CEO Delos M. Cosgrove Would Proudly Discriminate Against Fat People"

As a physician who has been up and down the scale myself, and discriminated against when on the heavy side, I am quite tired of such attitudes.

I note more realistic attitudes at http://www.weightcenter.org/ .

I believe a statement from you on this matter would be appropriate.

I am CC'ing this message to cswd.org and amplestuff.com, two groups with whom I communicated in the past.

It is a sad day indeed when the Chairman of one of the finest hospitals in the world, Massachusetts General, talks stupidly and discriminatorily out of the distal gastrointestinal orifice about how much people put in the proximal end of their GI tracts.

-- SS

Why Pretend An Advertising Executive and Chamber of Commerce Leader Are Public Health Experts?

Obesity as a public health problem has been the subject of considerable discussion.  So that luminaries from the prestigious Partners Healthcare system and Massachusetts Blue Cross Blue Shield would weigh in on the issue at a public meeting should surprise no one.  But see this report by the Boston Herald:

When asked about rising health-care costs, Jack Connors - chairman of the Partners chain, which includes Mass. General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals - said yesterday, 'Taking care of yourself starts at home.'

'What happened to individual responsibility?' Connors said at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce breakfast at the Westin Boston Waterfront. 'Why is obesity such an epidemic (when) we all know that a big part of being healthy is exercising and eating the right food?'

Blue Cross Blue Shield Chairman Paul Guzzi echoed Connors’ attitude yesterday.

'What is the responsibility of the individual?' said Guzzi, who as the chamber’s chief executive hosted Senate President Therese Murray’s speech on health care yesterday, despite his dual role as Blue Cross chairman.

Jack Connors is currently chair of the board of Partners Healthcare.  A quick biography is here:

John M. Connors, Jr., 67, Chairman Emeritus of Hill Holliday (formerly Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, Inc). (full service marketing and communications company) since 2006. Chairman of Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, Inc. from 1995 until 2006, during which time Mr. Connors also served as President and Chief Executive Officer until 2003. Mr. Connors was a founding partner of Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos. Director of Covidien Ltd. Mr. Connors’ 40 years of business experience includes cofounding and developing one of the top advertising and marketing communications firms in the United States, advising many of the top branded companies in the world, and serving on the boards of dozens of entities, including public companies, private companies, hospitals and colleges. (Biographical Information as of 4/16/10)

Although Mr Connors did once run a medical education and communications company (see this post), he has no obvious direct experience or training in biology, epidemiology, public health, or medicine.

Similarly, here is biography of Paul Guzzi:

Paul Guzzi is president and chief executive officer of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, one of the region’s leading business associations.

Mr. Guzzi brings extensive experience in both business and government to his work at the Chamber. A former Massachusetts secretary of state and chief secretary to the Governor, as well as a member of the management teams of two Fortune 500 companies; he is a leading advocate for economic development and job creation.

Prior to leading the Chamber, Mr. Guzzi was vice president of state and community affairs for Boston College. Previously, he was a consultant for Heidrick & Struggles, an international recruitment and consulting firm. Mr. Guzzi also served as a vice president at Data General Corporation and as a senior vice president at Wang Laboratories. During his tenure at Wang, he worked closely with Dr. An Wang to oversee the restoration and transformation of what is now the Wang Theatre.

Mr. Guzzi began his public service career as a state representative from Newton in 1970. He was elected Massachusetts secretary of state in 1974. Mr. Guzzi served as a chief of staff for Governor Edward King and chief administrator of the Board of Regents of Public Higher Education.

A graduate of Harvard University, Mr. Guzzi holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in government. He completed the Harvard Business School Management Development Program. He was also an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.

Again, Mr Guzzi has no obvious training or experience in biology, epidemiology, public health, or medicine.

So maybe it should be no surprise that the Boston Herald article chronicled some skepticism about these worthies' public health pronouncements.

Calling the pair’s comments 'pure smoke blowing,' Boston University public health professor Alan Sager said, 'Sure individual responsibility matters, but the responsibility for efficient, affordable, high-quality health care for all Americans falls on everybody who works in health care.'

By the way,

Connors said a major reason for rising health-care costs is that a high percentage of people who leave the hospital are later readmitted, because they don’t follow their doctors’ directions. He owns a company, Dovetail Health, that makes money by helping elderly patients readjust to life after hospitalization, including staying on their medications.

Every week I get piles of notices of "healthcare" conferences at which most of the speakers are health care organizational executives with no obvious expertise or experience in actual health care, or in biology, epidemiology, public health or medicine. I think I dimly remember a time when most people who gave public remarks on health care actually knew something about health care, not just about making money (often personally in large amounts) from the health care "industry."

Note that while the Herald was able to find people who were skeptical about these health care leaders' remarks, there was no report that their audience (presumably made up mainly of business people) roared with laughter at their efforts to talk about controversial topics which they did not seem to really understand.

We need to ask why we have become so deferential to leaders of large (and and least heretofore prestigious) health care organizations that we treat them like true experts on biology, epidemiology, public health or medicine when they have no obvious expertise, or even knowledge in these areas?

Thanks to one of our anonymous scouts for a tip on this item.

A Health Care CEO Who Didn't Put His Own Pay First

We recently posted about executives at two different not-for-profit health care insurance companies/ managed care organizations whose pay seemed to keep levitating, despite organizational financial losses, and commented on how the compensation of top executives of health care organizations seems always to go up, regardless of the financial fortunes, or quality of the products or services provided by their organizations. (Posts here and here.)

Today's Boston Globe, however, provided a contrast. The background is that the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), a renowned Harvard teaching institution, is facing a budget shortfall.

Paul Levy, the guy who runs Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, was standing in Sherman Auditorium the other day, before some of the very people to whom he might soon be sending pink slips.

In the days before the meeting, Levy had been walking around the hospital, noticing little things.

He stood at the nurses' stations, watching the transporters, the people who push the patients around in wheelchairs. He saw them talk to the patients, put them at ease, make them laugh. He saw that the people who push the wheelchairs were practicing medicine.

He noticed the same when he poked his head into the rooms and watched as the people who deliver the food chatted up the patients and their families.

He watched the people who polish the corridors, who strip the sheets, who empty the trash cans, and he realized that a lot of them are immigrants, many of them had second jobs, most of them were just scraping by.

And so Paul Levy had all this bouncing around his brain the other day when he stood in Sherman Auditorium.

He looked out into a sea of people and recognized faces: technicians, secretaries, administrators, therapists, nurses, the people who are the heart and soul of any hospital. People who knew that Beth Israel had hired about a quarter of its 8,000 staff over the last six years and that the chances that they could all keep their jobs and benefits in an economy in freefall ranged between slim and none.

'I want to run an idea by you that I think is important, and I'd like to get your reaction to it,' Levy began. 'I'd like to do what we can to protect the lower-wage earners - the transporters, the housekeepers, the food service people. A lot of these people work really hard, and I don't want to put an additional burden on them.'

'Now, if we protect these workers, it means the rest of us will have to make a bigger sacrifice,' he continued. 'It means that others will have to give up more of their salary or benefits.'

He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when Sherman Auditorium erupted in applause. Thunderous, heartfelt, sustained applause.

The editorialist's conclusion was:

Paul Levy is trying something revolutionary, radical, maybe even impossible: He is trying to convince the people who work for him that the E in CEO can sometimes stand for empathy.

Note that Levy is one of the few health care CEOs who blogs, and he appears to write his blog on his own, unfettered by public relations flacks or risk-averse lawyers. His discussion of his revolutionary plan is here.

Further note the context in which he is working. While his medical center does not seem to receive particularly payments from insurance companies and managed care organizations, a previously secret agreement between the previous CEO of Partners Healthcare, another renowned, but competing Harvard-affiliated medical system and the previous CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state's biggest, and not-for-profit health care insurer/ managed care organization awarded much higher payments to that health care system (see posts here and here). And the current CEO of that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts just received (see this post) a substantial raise, enough to make him the best paid health care CEO in the state, while his organization's revenues and membership decreased.

This case shows it is possible for a health care CEO to put the organization's mission, and the welfare and morale of its hard working staff ahead of his own remuneration. If only this example were not so rare.

A $4.3 Million Dollar CEO for a Not-For-Profit Health Care Insurance Corporation

The US stock markets are at lows unseen for more than 10 years, unemployment is rising, around the world national deficits are increasing, and times are tough for ostensibly not-for-profit Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state's largest health care insurer/ managed care organization. Per the Boston Globe:

Blue Cross-Blue Shield's business was affected by the stock market decline, the recession, and the increasing cost of medical care.

Membership at the state's largest health plan declined about 40,000 to just over 3 million.

'The decline in membership had an impact on results,' said chief financial officer Allen Maltz. 'In addition, many of our customers changed their benefits plans to products that have much lower margins.'

Blue Cross-Blue Shield insures employees of national companies that have locations outside Massachusetts, Maltz said, and those customers accounted for some of the drop-off in membership.

Maltz said Blue Cross-Blue Shield aims for a profit margin of between 1.5 and 2 percent. Last year's margin was almost zero. The firm had operating income from its medical claims business of just $1.6 million.

A new state assessment on reserves lowered income by $21 million, Maltz said. Revenue was flat at $6.7 billion, and medical claims were also unchanged at $6 billion.

Like most health insurers, Blue Cross-Blue Shield also relies on investment income, which fell 28 percent to $111 million. Maltz said the firm managed to avoid losses in the market by investing primarily in bonds and avoiding derivative securities that have declined precipitously in value.

Well, things are tough all over. But they are apparently not so tough for Blue Cross Blue Shield's CEO:

The salary and bonus paid to Cleve L. Killingsworth, chairman and chief executive of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, increased 26 percent last year, to $3.5 million, even though the health insurer's membership declined and its net income fell 49 percent.

Based on previous years' retirement benefits - which Blue Cross-Blue Shield did not report for 2008 - Killingsworth's total pay package was likely about $4.3 million, making him by far the highest paid healthcare executive in Massachusetts.

And what was the justification for Killingworth's stellar pay?

Salaries at Blue Cross-Blue Shield were inflated by a complex executive bonus plan in which senior officials get bonuses based on a rolling average of the previous three years.

'These executives and the company performed and exceeded our expectations,' said Jay McQuaide, a Blue Cross-Blue Shield spokesman. 'They earned these incentives.' The key metrics in the incentive plan are membership and net profit, he said.

The company's board of directors did not do badly either. Unlike most boards of not-for-profit corporations, this one was paid:

The insurer's board members also received a 33 percent increase in base pay, from $30,000 a year to $40,000. Most earn far more because of payments for attending meetings and serving on committees.

Finally, according to the Boston Herald, other executives did quite nicely too:

Bay State health insurance bosses continued to rake in multimillion-dollar compensation packages last year as the state and its taxpayers struggled to pay ever-increasing health-care costs.

Data filed yesterday with the state’s Division of Insurance shows that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state’s largest HMO, doled out million-dollar pay packages to five executives, while Harvard Pilgrim Health Care paid its two highest-ranking executives a total of $2.7 million.

Blue Cross’ top earner is Peter Meade, who retired last spring as executive vice president of corporate affairs. Meade took home $4 million, a sum that includes retirement benefits accrued during his 12 years at the HMO.

It's just amazing that with all their talk about "pay for performance," top executives of health care organizations seem to make huge sums year in and year out, regardless of their organization's performance. (As an aside, how could someone say that the company's pay for performance "main metrics" were membership and net profit, when both fell, yet the CEO's pay rose?)

There was a brilliant discussion of the culture that lead to this sad state of affairs in the Times (UK) by Minette Marrin. It was about British bankers, but it just as well could have been about American health care executives:

The filthy rich, as Peter Mandelson affectionately calls them, are different. It is not just that they’re rich but that there’s something about being extremely rich that blurs ordinary perspective in all but the most exceptional people. Power may corrupt, but extreme wealth blinds and deafens.

I first came across the filthy rich just after I was married and went to live in Hong Kong in the 1970s. Leaving poverty-stricken Britain, my husband and I joined a gold rush of bankers and brokers to what was then still a crown colony. What we saw was wealth and conspicuous consumption beyond the wildest dreams of avarice.

Though we weren’t extremely highly paid, we spent a lot of time with people who were. Some were entrepreneurs and others were employees of banks and trading houses that, as today, offered them ways of making megabucks. Soon it became obvious that being very rich is like catching an insidious virus. Some people are able to resist it, but with most people the super-riches virus burrows into your nervous system for life. It blurs your perspective, weakens your grasp on reality and changes your identity into someone who is entitled to be very rich.

Ms Marrin's description of "plutocratic blindness" seems to apply to a CEO of a so-called not-for-profit organization who could claim more than $4 million in a year in which the global economy collapsed, and his own organization did rather badly by any financial measure.

This passage by Ms Marrin seems applicable to the Blue Cross Blue Shield Board who approved this disproportionate pay package:

But I do know things are done quite differently on the parallel planet inhabited by the filthy rich. Remuneration boards unselfconsciously award each other astonishing packages, wrapped up in euphemism.

The lack of selfconsciousness in this case may have been driven by the board's familiarity with how things used to be done in the American financial sector. A quarter of the board's members are leaders in that sector (see post here).

Let me close with Ms Marrin's suggested solution:

The filthy rich culture that has developed in the past 20 years is sick. It needs strong medicine, fresh air, open windows. Above all, what’s needed is a cold dose of fear – fear of failing, of being sacked and of losing the lovely money. Here is an excellent antidote to greed.