Humana’s Lack of Humanity

Humana is a name that is well known to seniors on Medicare. It so well known because is it one of the main providers of Medicare Advantage plans throughout the country. That has come about through making sure that in the states where it offers its plans, people really, really know their name.

That has worked so well for them that over two-thirds of their policies are Medicare Advantage and prescription plans. That adds up to about 3.8 million policies.

Last year alone, Humana made $29 million dollars from its policies and ended up ranked at 98 out of 100 on Fortune Magazine’s list of the top corporations in the United States. In addition, Humana’s CEO, whose name is Michael McAllister got paid $2.9 million dollars – 10% of what the company took in. Add to that McAllister’s million dollar home near Louisville, which backs up to an exclusive country club. Then his vacation home in an exclusive section of Park City, Utah is worth nearly $7million dollars. In addition, McAllister has been paid about $60 million total from 2004 to 2009 and owns over $60 million in Humana stocks.

You would think that all this would add up to just a little appreciation and some compassion for the people that are Humana’s clients. Instead, it has heavily lobbied against parts of proposed healthcare reform that would actually help many people, especially those on low or fixed incomes. Instead, he expects his underwriters to maintain at least a 10% denial rate – whether doctors are adamant about what the patient truly needs or not. He has also directed campaigns – one in particular by mail – that mislead people. One particular mail campaign used letters addressed to policyholders so they would think that there was urgent and date sensitive material regarding their policies inside, therefore opening them immediately. When policyholders opened this piece of mail, it had no material about their policy. The mail simply tried to coerce them into not backing President Obama’s healthcare reform – especially any reform that offered a public option.

These letters warned people that they would lose Medicare and Medicare Advantage benefits if new legislation passed, and it told them to contact their Congressperson. This letter campaign went to several million policyholders and frightened and confused these seniors. There was a huge negative reaction and quite a fuss about them. Yet, Humana and its CEO continue to take in its millions upon millions in premiums and profits.

Meanwhile, in his very own “vacation state” of Utah, there are problems. I am not guessing at this. I have been in the doctor’s office when people were trying to straighten out their billing issues between the doctor and Humana and were told that Humana’s rates would skyrocket in this area next year and they would probably no longer be doing business here.

A quote from Huffington Post exposes McAllister’s feelings about humans – the people the company is supposed to serve – versus money. The following quote from Huffington is quite telling: “It is important to note if we have to choose between achieving our membership goals and achieving profitability goals, profits will win every time,” CEO Michael McAllister said in 2003. The following year, he reiterated the company’s priorities in an interview with the Associated Press: “We will not play the market share game and will continue to price our business for bottom line profitability.”
By choosing profits over people, McAllister could soon see the people choosing other companies instead of Humana – especially as the word gets out. They say that “turnabout is fair play.” Time will tell for Humana.