Health care CEOs raked in $3.2 billion as pandemic raged - Ars Technica

Jun 15, 2021

Collectively, the 178 CEOs took home $3.2 billion in 2020, according to a new analysis by Axios.

Their median pay rose to $9 million, up from about $7.7 million in 2018 and $8 million in 2019.

The 2019 US median household income was $68,703, according to the US Census Bureau.

Thirty health care CEOs made over $30 million each.

That list includes the CEOs of Regeneron ($174 million), Eli Lilly ($68 million), Teladoc ($45 million), UnitedHealth Group ($42 million), and Quest Diagnostics ($34 million).

The CEOs of six health care conglomerates—Anthem, Centene, Cigna, CVS Health, Humana, and UnitedHealth Group—collectively took in $236 million in 2020.

A record 1.4 million health care workers were laid off or furloughed in April of 2020, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Likewise, the for-profit hospital chain Tenet Healthcare received $345 million in taxpayer assistance in the first half of 2020 and furloughed roughly 11,000 workers, according to the Times.