Javon Bea, president and CEO of Janesville, Wis.-based Mercy Health System, who made roughly $3.6 million in total compensation in 2009, is defending his salary, saying it has no effect on healthcare costs, according to a Janesville Gazette report.
An August report in the Wisconsin State Journal reported that hospital and health executives in the Madison, Wis., area made more than the national average of $630,000 in total compensation. Mr. Bea said the report unfairly compared executives of individual organizations with him because he runs a three-hospital system. He said a more fair comparison would be adding the salaries of several of the organizations' CEOs as well as their COOs, which Mercy does not have.
"If I die tomorrow, I know the board wouldn't — if they replace me with one person to do all those functions — be paying at that level because someone would be coming in to run what I built," Mr. Bea said in the report.
An August report in the Wisconsin State Journal reported that hospital and health executives in the Madison, Wis., area made more than the national average of $630,000 in total compensation. Mr. Bea said the report unfairly compared executives of individual organizations with him because he runs a three-hospital system. He said a more fair comparison would be adding the salaries of several of the organizations' CEOs as well as their COOs, which Mercy does not have.
"If I die tomorrow, I know the board wouldn't — if they replace me with one person to do all those functions — be paying at that level because someone would be coming in to run what I built," Mr. Bea said in the report.
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