Nashville, Tennessee-Based and By Far the Largest Publicly-Held Hospital Company HCA Healthcare's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase Was a Completely Off-the-Charts 83.5% Per Year During the Past Ten Years

HCA Healthcare has a stock market cap of $41.2 Bil.

At December 31, 2018, it had 179 hospitals.  In addition, it had 123 free-standing surgery centers.

Its facilities are located in 20 US States and in England.

The third Democratic 2020 Presidential candidate debate was held in Houston, Texas on September 12, 2019.  The stickout strong performers in this debate were Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O'Rourke and Cory Booker.  The only one of the Top Four candidates in the polls performing OK in this debate was Elizabeth Warren, with the other Top Three in the polls slipping in performance in this debate, especially two of them Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders.

The most insightful recent move by the Democratic Presidential candidates is Pete Buttigieg's Bus.  With this acquisition, Pete is showing his confidence in very effectively dealing with the press on a constant basis.  This move should eventually propel him into 3rd place in Iowa and give him a decent shot of eventually reaching the coveted 15% of Iowa's caucus vote.

The fourth Democratic 2020 Presidential candidate debate will be held on October 15, 2020 at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, a Columbus suburb.  It's good to see that the New York Times will be one of the hosts.  The quality and relevance of the questions should improve substantially from what they were in the first three debates where the key economic issues played such a minor part.

The key issue to US citizens should be the huge and continuing Income Inequality Expansion which is at the core of many critical problems the US faces.

While increasing the US federal minimum wage will help here, there is a much broader and critical problem that needs to be solved.  The annual percentage increase in the pay and employee benefits of Company non-executive employees are minuscule in relation to that of Company executive employees and this has been going on for decades.  When Corporate CEOs and CFOs primarily view non-executive employees as a Cost rather than as a Person, this is what happens. And neither political party has had the courage to take on US Corporations here.

But it's more than just US Corps.  It's also other for-profit US Organizations like Partnerships and Trusts.

And it's also relates to US Non-Profit Organizations, including Non-Profit Hospitals and other Non-Profit Healthcare Organizations, which for decades have experienced just huge and continuing differences in annual percentage pay and employee benefits increases between executives, including doctors and other highly-paid medical professionals, and non-executives employees.  And neither political party has had the courage to take on US  Hospitals either.

To give you a perspective on just how huge the differences are between publicly-held hospital executives and hospital non-executive employees, from annual compensation information contained in Company Proxy Statement filings with the US SEC, the chart at the bottom below shows HCA Healthcare's Top-Tier Executives Annual Total Compensation for each of the two consecutive full years of employment for the past ten years.  And it comes to a massive 83.5% average increase per year!

There have been many US Government laws enacted in the past two decades that have substantially increased income inequality expansion, but none more so than the Trump Tax Cuts Act.

On the other hand, the only highly effective US Government law enacted by either party in the past two decades that has substantially reduced income inequality expansion is Obamacare.

My objective is to get a better handle on just why the US has such massive continuing Income Inequality Expansion ..... it appears to be predominantly about the relative long-term annual pay raise percentages for the executives of a Company vs the many non-executive employees of a Company, coupled with the stock price appreciation subsequent to the time the company executives were rewarded in their pay with stock equity compensation.

To fix Income Inequality driven mainly by Company and its Board of Director choices on Percentage Annual Pay Raises, the US Government should step in and pass wisely-designed, simple but effective Fair Pay Raise Income Inequality Narrowing Company tax incentives for Companies which reward non-executive employees with fair pay increases ..... the carrot ..... and Company tax disincentives for Companies which reward executive employees with clearly excessively high pay increases ..... the stick.  I am certain ..... it is simple math ..... that this tax proposal would be very effective in substantially reducing the huge income inequality expansion that has occurred for decades in annual percentage pay raises between company executives and the rest of the company employees.

The above Fair Pay Raise Tax proposal could also be applied to US Non-Profit Organizations like Hospitals and other Health Care Organizations, which are known for their creating huge and continuing income inequality expansion due to their discriminating policies on annual percentage pay and employee benefit increases between executive and non-executive employees.  

And the continuing annual net tax revenues raised by the US Government here should be set up in a separate fund to be used only for wise additional income inequality narrowing initiatives.  This fund should be run by an outside group made up entirely of minorities harmed the most by Income Inequality Expansion of the past decades  .....all women, all blacks, all Latinos, all other non-white people, all past and present union members, all LGBTQ, all non-employee contract workers and all middle and lower income people of all ages, including those retired.

Also, the US Government should require all US Corporate Boards and US Hospital Organization Boards to include at least one worker representative.

	FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec
HCA Healthcare	2018	2017		2017	2016		2016	2015		2015	2014		2014	2013
Top-Tier	Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total
Executive	Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp
	$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s
Milton Johnson Chairman and CEO	21,420	17,269		17,269	21,332		21,332	17,765		17,765	14,626		14,626	7,718
William Rutherford CFO	6,801	4,936		4,936	4,092		4,092	4,161		4,161	3,127
Samuel Hazen President and COO	10,007	9,530		9,530	8,807		8,807	7,001		7,001	8,290		8,290	5,149
Jon Foster President ----- American Group	4,532	4,210		N/A	N/A		N/A	N/A		4,251	4,584		4,584	4,216
Charles Hall President ----- National Group	4,150	3,012		3,012	3,220		3,220	3,186		3,186	4,429		4,429	3,377
Totals	46,910	38,957		34,747	37,451		37,451	32,113		36,364	35,056		31,929	20,460
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	20.4%			-7.2%			16.6%			3.7%			56.1%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change		17.9%
	FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec
HCA Healthcare	2013	2012		2012	2011		2011	2010		2010	2009		2009	2008
Top-Tier	Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total
Executive	Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp
	$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s
Milton Johnson President and CFO	7,718	27,249		27,249	2,757		2,757	21,927		21,927	6,780		6,780	3,053
Samuel Hazen President and COO	5,149	16,865		16,865	4,030		4,030	15,002		15,002	4,569		4,569	1,966
Jon Foster President ----- American Group	N/A	N/A		N/A	N/A		N/A	N/A
Charles Hall President ----- National Group	3,377	12,921		12,921	3,476		N/A	N/A
Richard Bracken Chairnan and CEO	16,528	46,359		46,359	5,738		5,738	38,201		38,201	12,253		12,253	3,528
Beverly Wallace President --- Shared Services										13,234	4,685		4,685	3,111
Paul Rutledge President ----- Central Group										11,587	4,090
Totals	32,772	103,394		103,394	16,001		12,525	75,130		99,951	32,377		28,287	11,658
Totals	-68.3%			546.2%			-83.3%			208.7%			142.6%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change		149.2%
10 Year Average Per Year % Change		83.5%