Business

Get Mad: Health Care CEOs Now Make More Than Bankers

While the Time's Person of the Year has been distracted protesting the financial industry, the salaries of healthcare CEOs have been skyrocketing. 

By Adam Clark Estes
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While the Time's Person of the Year has been distracted protesting the financial industry, the salaries of healthcare CEOs have been skyrocketing. The same American companies that are fighting health care reform are making Wall Street's famously inflated compensation packages -- that means paychecks as well as stock options -- look minuscule in comparison. The latest statistics show that not a single banker made it onto the list of top ten best-paid executives this year. The Guardian's Dominic Rushe offered up a few startling figures in his report on the newly released GMI Survey of CEO pay in 2010. Three of the top ten best-paid CEOs run health care companies:

  • John Hammergren, CEO of McKesson Corporation (a pharmaceutical company): $145,266,971
  • Joel F Gemunder, CEO of Omnicare (a pharmacy for the elderly): $98,283,242
  • Thomas M Ryan, CVS Caremark Corporation (a pharmacy for everybody): $68,079,823

If you're having a hard time stomaching the idea of paying health care executives nine-figure-sums as rising health care costs are making some Americans homeless, the story does have a bright side. Bankers' salaries are sinking fast.

Image by Aletia via Shutterstock

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.