Behind the Blog: Healthcare and its Stakeholders
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we talk about health insurance.
EMANUEL: Publicly traded companies have to disclose who their CEO is and what they are getting paid to the SEC because as publicly traded companies they owe shareholders and potential shareholders a degree of transparency about the company they are investing in and doing business with.
UnitedHealth Group, whose CEO was gunned down in the street this week, is a publicly traded company, as is the parent company for health insurer Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, which, as Sam reported last night, is one of a number of health insurance companies that took down the “leadership” pages from their sites, naming and showing their CEOs and other top executives.
I’m not going to jump into the fray here about the morality of murdering a CEO of a company that greedily makes life and death decisions that haunt countless of people and families for the rest of their lives other than to note that clearly a large segment of the public has responded to it with a certain sense of righteous glee. What I think is interesting is the decision of these companies to now try and hide their leadership teams. Obviously, this is a pragmatic choice of whatever person or team is now responsible for their safety, but it also highlights one of the many hypocrisies that I believe makes people feel okay celebrating someone’s murder.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”