Protecting CEOs

The food chain of corporate leadership is Board Chairs, President/Chief Executive Officers, and competition of leadership on the board and executive teams. That’s two teams: board and executive management teams.

Executive management is very competitive as individuals of importance due to their areas of expertise in the company, press their knowledge edge to strategic significance within the company. Vice President of Finance is one such player for advancement to CEO, but so are the Vice Presidents of Operations or Manufacturing highly competitive for leadership of the company.

Whatever the position, it is the management team that is responsible for daily operations of the organization. Primary policy and strategy matters are supposed to come from the Board of Directors but are often voiced and created by the management team. Thus, how a corporation functions in the marketplace is an outgrowth of executive team leadership. That focuses squarely on the President/CEO of the firm.

Often, the face of a company is its CEO. We consumers and investors would know the firm by its CEO more often than the name of the Company. Chase Bank is best known by Jamie Dimon for example. The bigger the company, the more familiar we are with the primary leader of the firm.

Health insurance corporations are a large factor in our healthcare and covering costs of healthcare. I avoid many prescriptions drugs mainly by the high cost of them when they are named as higher tiers for insurance coverage and deductibles. That policy alone, affects my health care. My doctors want me on certain drugs because they fit my need better than lesser drugs. When I tell them I can’t afford the differential costs, they prescribe lesser meds and really grumble about it. They understand the problem and resent the role of healthcare insurance companies reducing the effectiveness of a patient’s treatment.

The negative effects of some insurance coverage can lead to shorter life spans. That outcome is mostly caused by an economic policy rather than a medical one. Is that fair or reasonable? Most likely not.

Similar outcomes result from other corporate policies in other industries. But the focus of this blog posting is on economic policies that affect negatively on healthcare treatment. The recent shooting and murder of United Healthcare Insurance CEO Brian Thompson was caused by a patient who understood the role of the insurance carrier harming his healthcare.

Murder is not appropriate for any cause; however, it is understandable. The murder suspect made many attempts at changing the policy decision in his case. All were refuted. All were impersonal and economically based decisions. With enough frustration, he acted by way of murder.

That is an extreme case. Lesser extremes are lawsuits. That is expensive and slow acting, thus placing the risk all on the patient and not on the decision maker. Seems unfair at the start.

How else do consumers and patients get their legitimate gripe heard and acted upon. After all, a patient and his/her doctor are the primary individuals involved. Not the insurance company. The purpose of health insurance companies is to make proper healthcare accessible and affordable to patients. Their role is not to make medical decisions.

What is a doctor and patient to do about this? More importantly, when do the Brian Thompsons learn the restrictions on their power?

CEOs need to understand this lesson well. They should not fear for their life, but their decisions risk the lives of the patients. Shame on them. Shame on the healthcare insurance industry. The court system ought not be the arbiter in such cases; rather, the doctor is. Perhaps Congress can address this problem before it gets any worse? Meantime, the industry has the power and purpose to do the same.

December 18, 2024

 

 

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