• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

PNHP

  • Home
  • Contact PNHP
  • Join PNHP
  • Donate
  • PNHP Store
  • About PNHP
    • Mission Statement
    • Board of Directors
    • National Office Staff
    • Speakers Bureau
    • Local Chapters
    • Students for a National Health Program
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
  • About Single Payer
    • What is Single Payer?
      • Policy Details
      • FAQs
      • History of Health Reform
      • Información en Español
    • How do we pay for it?
    • Physicians’ Proposal
      • Full Proposal
      • Supplemental Materials
      • Media Coverage
    • The Medicare for All Act of 2025
  • Take Action
    • Moral Injury and Distress
    • Medical Society Resolutions
    • Recruit Colleagues
    • Schedule a Grand Rounds
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Lobby Visits
    • Organizing in Red Districts
  • Heal Medicare
    • HealMedicare.org
    • Sign our Petition
    • Take our Survey
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Stop REACH
  • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Maternal Mortality
    • Mental Health Care
    • Health Care Voters Guide
    • COVID-19 Endangers Health Workers
    • COVID-19 Exacerbates Racial Inequities
    • Public Health Emergencies
    • Rural Health Care
    • Racial Health Inequities
    • Surprise Billing
  • Latest News
    • Sign up for e-alerts
    • Medicare Advantage harms report
    • Members in the news
    • Health Justice Monitor
    • Articles of Interest
    • Latest Research
    • For the Press
  • Member Resources
    • 2024 Annual Meeting Materials
    • Member Interest Groups (MIGs)
    • Newsletter
    • Slideshows
    • Materials & Handouts
    • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • COVID-19 Response
      • Why we Need Medicare for All
      • PNHP’s 8-point plan
      • New Study: Perils and Possibilities
      • Emergency COVID-19 Legislation
      • Kitchen Table Toolkit
      • Take Action on COVID-19
      • Telling your COVID-19 story
      • PNHP members in the news
    • Events Calendar
    • Webinars
    • Film Room
    • Join or renew your membership
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Hoosier rips WellPoint’s greed, deceptive PR, and CEO pay

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

The following remarks were made by Karen Green Stone at the annual shareholders meeting of the giant health insurer WellPoint in Indianapolis on May 17. Green Stone is a member of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Care Plan, an affiliate of Physicians for a National Health Program. For the past several years she and other members of HCHP have challenged WellPoint’s profit-driven business practices on the floor of the annual meeting, urging shareholders to vote for a resolution demanding the company return to its nonprofit roots. They’ve received significant media coverage for their efforts, and their support for single-payer national health insurance has also been noted. An excerpt from her remarks on Tuesday was published in the Indianapolis Business Journal.


Karen Green Stone

My name is Karen Green Stone from Bloomington. I own 15 shares.

Since last year’s meeting it’s estimated that another 50,000 people have died in the United States because they are uninsured. That equals the entire population of Kokomo [Ind.].

I’d like to start with comments made by friends and strangers I’ve talked to about coming to this meeting. “Give the bastards hell,” one said. “Go get ’em,” said another. “I hate Anthem,” a friend told me. Still another: “Don’t get me started.”

After hearing Wendell Potter speak in Bloomington on his book tour (I’m sure you all know Wendell Potter) a friend said to me, “I sometimes thought I was crazy, a conspiracy theorist – now I know they really are evil.”

I read and talked to Wendell about his book, “Deadly Spin.” What stirs my anger the most is the stealth and perversion you’ve used to shape public opinion. Your PR campaigns have nurtured fear and confusion in the minds of reasonable and caring Americans.

I imagine it must be very difficult hold steady the concept of “I’m a good person and I work for a corporation that by its very nature lacks compassion and is indifferent to suffering.” But good and intelligent people can sometimes fall into a trap.

Everyone in this room knows that it’s all about money and power. We know WellPoint’s sordid history of rescission, rigged software, cherry-picking of healthy patients and denial of care. We know about the barriers you build, making it so difficult that people give up or die fighting with you.

I hope that one or some of you in this room who feel the stirrings of having sold out will find the courage to go public with inside information because your business model is taking down America.

Angela, it takes 285 public school teachers in Indiana who earn an average of $47,000 a year to equal your 2010 compensation package of $13.4 million.

Would you kindly tell us why you are entitled to so much more than them?

Primary Sidebar

Categories

Archives

Footer

  • About PNHP
    • Mission Statement
    • Board of Directors
    • National Office Staff
    • Speakers Bureau
    • Local Chapters
    • Students for a National Health Program
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
  • About Single Payer
    • What is Single Payer?
      • Policy Details
      • FAQs
      • History of Health Reform
      • Información en Español
    • How do we pay for it?
    • Physicians’ Proposal
      • Full Proposal
      • Supplemental Materials
      • Media Coverage
    • The Medicare for All Act of 2025
  • Take Action
    • Moral Injury and Distress
    • Medical Society Resolutions
    • Recruit Colleagues
    • Schedule a Grand Rounds
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Lobby Visits
    • Organizing in Red Districts
  • Heal Medicare
    • HealMedicare.org
    • Sign our Petition
    • Take our Survey
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Stop REACH
  • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Maternal Mortality
    • Mental Health Care
    • Health Care Voters Guide
    • COVID-19 Endangers Health Workers
    • COVID-19 Exacerbates Racial Inequities
    • Public Health Emergencies
    • Rural Health Care
    • Racial Health Inequities
    • Surprise Billing
  • Latest News
    • Sign up for e-alerts
    • Medicare Advantage harms report
    • Members in the news
    • Health Justice Monitor
    • Articles of Interest
    • Latest Research
    • For the Press
  • Member Resources
    • 2024 Annual Meeting Materials
    • Member Interest Groups (MIGs)
    • Newsletter
    • Slideshows
    • Materials & Handouts
    • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • COVID-19 Response
      • Why we Need Medicare for All
      • PNHP’s 8-point plan
      • New Study: Perils and Possibilities
      • Emergency COVID-19 Legislation
      • Kitchen Table Toolkit
      • Take Action on COVID-19
      • Telling your COVID-19 story
      • PNHP members in the news
    • Events Calendar
    • Webinars
    • Film Room
    • Join or renew your membership
©2025 PNHP