Mark R. Neaman, president and CEO of Evanston-based NorthShore University HealthSystem, will speak in Northfield on “The Status of Healthcare Reform” at the annual meeting of the North Shore Senior Center on Jan. 10.
The meeting, which begins at 10 a.m., is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required.
The Center, located at 161 Northfield Road, serves more than 35,000 individuals and their families in 23 communities in Chicago’s northern suburbs. The staff is assisted by nearly 700 volunteers who contribute more than 42,000 hours of their time annually.
Its Evanston office, on Dodge Avenue at Main Street, provides social services to seniors in Evanston and Skokie.
Mark R. Nearman, what’s his salary again?
Mr. Nearman is to speak on the "status of healthcare reform" is he? Don't I recall reading that his salary is well over $1 million a year?
Perhaps Mr. Nearman can give his audience the percentage of each NSUHS bill that goes to him and how this amount going to the top guy has changed over the years and is predicted to change in the future under "healthcare reform".
Whatever healthcare reform will do for you and me, you can be sure it will do no harm to Mr. Nearman or his successors. For him that will be, as the old Ford commercials used to say, Job 1. His presentation is an example of outreach from the .1% to the 99.99%.
Possibly underpaid
Unless I'm mistaken, doesn't Mr. Nearman heads the North shore system which operates four major hospitals, all of which are considered top of the line facilities not only in IL but top of the line in the nation.
There must be easily over 1000 beds providing in patient service of 365,000 days plus probably somewhere between 50 thousand to 100 thousand individual surgerical procedures from minor to major at the very least. Can't even begin to think how many individual consultations, testing procedures, etc etc that goes on in that group. There must also be over 10 thousand employees within that group.
Being the leader responsible for that size of complex organization, overseeing and driving that level of quality care means he is quite possibly underpaid.
If you want a kick back for the percentage of any bill you have incurred there I personally volunteer to pay you your share of his salary for that visit. Considering all that goes on within that group, averaged out, I'm sure I can find a couple loose quarters under the cushions for you.
Whatever unknowns healthcare reform will bear upon us, hopefully people like Mr. Nearman and the operation he has overseen will not be harmed by some typical govt. bureaucratic system of B.S.
another millionaire underpaid?
Mr. Anonymous, for reasons unknown –
The arguments you give make no sense.
First, the great responsibility argument. As you know from reading the news, the income of those at the top has risen tremendously while the rest of the working world has risen very little if at all.
You can't maintain that the responsibilities of those at the top has changed accordingly. There have always been heads of corporations with great responsibility and as you also know, top responsibility these days is not directly tied to income, experience or even track record, but to the deal that the person can make with the board of directors. How many with great responsibility go from failure to a big increase in pay?
By the way, we might ask Mr. Nearman at his talk what kind of arrangements he has made in the event he is fired. I suspect it would make the audience gasp.
Second, I will personally volunteer to pay your share of his salary for your visit. This misses the point.
In what I said, I asked if he would tell us the how the amount of the salary for his position reflected in our bills has changed over the years. The actual amount that you offer to pay is small, the change in the amount is likely not. His salary could be multiplied by 10, no matter what it is now, and the amount as a percentage of a given bill would be small, you'd still be happy to pay it, but the change would be 1000%. I ask, what has that percentage change been?
If you don’t like his salary
If you don't like his salary you should start an Occupy NorthShore Healthcare System.
better idea
"If you don't like his salary you should start an Occupy NorthShore Healthcare System."
Not a bad idea, but that would just get in the way of innocent patients.
Maybe a better idea is to have Lisa Madigan look into the "Not for profit" status of this system.
And your statements have no
And your statements have no relevance.
First off, I can maintain a case that the responsibility of the person at the top is much greater because that organization has expanded and may very well continue to expand. From one hospital to four, from X number of patients to Y, etc. etc. And all that expansion accomplished while not only keeping the level of quality care at the top but arguably improving that level overall at all four hospitals. Therefore maybe his salary percentage should be reflective in the percentage of expansion growth of the organization, the higher level of overall care and his future plans to implement continuing growth and improvement.
That makes much more sense than what the median average salary of what everybody and anybody else makes. That has no relevance whatsoever. So your salary went up or down, that is irrelevant and has no bearing on me, him or anyone else.
While I agree huge salaries or bonuses for failure is a problem, big salaries for success are justified. I can also agree with the post about non profit status that someone else made. Benchmarks need to be established and facilities held to solid standards or they lose that standing, but that is a different discussion than your biased and unjustified statements.