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THE GOVERNOR’S RACE | FACT CHECK

Filings show Baker compensation in line with peers

By Brian C. Mooney
Globe Staff / March 17, 2010

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The claim
Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray, the attack dog in Governor Deval Patrick’s reelection campaign, seized this week on the private sector compensation of Charles D. Baker Jr., Patrick’s leading GOP challenger. Murray, in an interview with the Boston Herald, accused Baker of “jacking his own pay’’ as chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care at a time of soaring premiums in health insurance and health care costs.

The facts
Baker’s compensation package as chief of the state’s second-largest health insurer was not out of line with those at the other not-for-profit insurers in Massachusetts, a review of the companies’ filings shows.

Baker was paid less than his counterpart at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the largest insurer, and more than those at Tufts Health Plan and Fallon Community Health Plan.

In 2008, his last full year at Harvard Pilgrim, Baker’s compensation totaled $1.7 million. Until his resignation last July, he received $1.3 million in 2009. The figure for last year includes a bonus of $692,071, which he earned for the company’s performance the prior year, according to the insurer. If he had stayed at Harvard Pilgrim for the entire year, his compensation package would have been roughly the same as in 2008, but with a higher salary and lower bonus.

In 2009, Blue Cross-Blue Shield chief executive Cleve L. Killingsworth was paid $1.98 million, down from $3.67 million in 2008, because of sharply reduced bonuses to senior executives at Blue Cross. Killingsworth’s 2009 package consisted of a $1.04 million salary, $849,680 bonus, and $90,390 in other compensation. In 2008, his bonus was $2.5 million. Killingsworth resigned from Blue Cross this week.

At Tufts Health Plan, chief executive James Roosevelt was paid $1.15 million in 2009, up about $90,000 from the prior year. His 2009 package included a salary of $526,857 and a bonus of $623,526.

Fallon chief Eric H. Schultz received $787,033 last year, up from $714,280 in 2008. Schultz’s package included a $450,000 salary, a $200,000 bonus, and $137,033 in other compensation.

The analysis
With health care shaping up to be a dominant political issue this year, the attacks on Baker’s salary and record by Patrick and Murray signal the Democrats’ intention to try to transform Baker’s major credential into a liability. Patrick’s campaign clearly believes it can sully Baker’s brand by linking him and his tenure at Harvard Pilgrim to the high cost of health care. Baker counters that his corporate experience uniquely qualifies him to fix what’s wrong with the universal health care plan.

© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.

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