A couple days ago I spoke of a Mick posting discussing executive salaries and benefits.  Ironic then that yesterday United Health Group CEO William McGuire is thinking maybe abuse of stock options has gone on long enough and they should curtail the practice.

Well, that is to say, they should curtail the practice now that he's managed to enrich himself by it to the tune of $1.6 BILLION.  Yes I said billion.

As Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman observes:

I admit that at first glance, $1.6 billion looks bad. But let's do the math. Doc McGuire has been with UnitedHealth for 14 years, which means he has gained only $114 million a year in stock options. And when you break each year into 52 weeks of 40 hours each, grinding away behind a big oak desk, you find that 2,080 hours went into that $114 million. This guy is a workhorse, I'm telling you. He probably worked a few Saturday mornings and took his laptop to Aruba. But here's the clincher: His earnings were below the average earnings of registered nurses in Minnesota. There's your outrage!

By my calculations, Doc McGuire was making $55,000 while nurses, according to labor statistics, made $58,000! Yes, nurses have a tough job, but McGuire runs a health care empire and is totally responsible for making sure we all feel perky. Shouldn't he get paid more than some frazzled nurse trying to keep grandpa alive?

Um, wait a minute. Something doesn't seem quite right. I may have missed something. Oh, yeah. Here it is:

Nurses earn $58,000. A year.

McGuire made $55,000. An hour. Hmmm. Today's registered nurse would have had to start working way back in the Year of Our Lord 41 -- a few years after Jesus was crucified -- in order to have earned the $114 million that McGuire made every year for the past 14 years. 

Keep that in mind when people bitch about rising healthcare costs...