The Indianapolis Star (Indiana)
Susan Bayh, wife of Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., sits on the board of the nation’s largest health insurance company, a part-time job that is proving quite lucrative.
As part of her compensation as a director at WellPoint, she gained $796,000 this month from cashing in stock options granted by the Indianapolis company. It was her biggest transaction since joining its board in 1998.
A lawyer, Susan Bayh long has served on multiple corporate boards but has seen her largest stock gains from WellPoint. The company, through multibillion-dollar mergers, has exploded from a regional insurer into a national health-care powerhouse.
WellPoint boasts 33.9 million members, roughly one out of nine Americans.
While big stock trades are commonplace in corporate America, some watchdog groups see an awkward mix of business and politics when it comes to a U.S. legislator having a spouse so closely involved with a major corporation. Sen. Bayh is considering a run for the presidency in 2008.
“Given that she has a high-profile role with the company and that this is a company that could benefit from the legislative actions of her husband, there is definitely a potential for a conflict of interest,” said Alex Knott, political editor for the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan group in Washington.
Watchdog organizations Public Citizen and the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights echoed those concerns.
Sen. Bayh and Susan Bayh each declined to comment on the stock trade. But Sen. Bayh’s communications director, Dan Pfeiffer, said that the Bayhs are strict in keeping their careers separate.
Pfeiffer said that Sen. Bayh forbids any company affiliated with Susan Bayh from lobbying him or his office.
“Senator Bayh always votes in what he believes is in the best interest of Hoosiers and the country, and the interest of companies that his family members
may be affiliated with are completely irrelevant,” Pfeiffer said.
He added that Bayh’s votes are often in direct opposition to the interests of those companies. Pfeiffer cited the senator’s 2003 vote against Medicare reform legislation, which was lobbied for by the health-care industry.
In her recent transaction, Susan Bayh exercised options allowing her to buy 20,001 WellPoint shares for prices ranging from $35.93 to $44.18 a share on Feb. 3, according to a regulatory filing. She sold those shares for the market price of $77.08 a share the same day, for a pretax gain of slightly more than $796,000.
It was her first WellPoint sale since cashing in stock options for a gain of about $400,000 in December 2004. She also was paid $52,400 for her work on WellPoint‘s board in 2004.
Susan Bayh certainly is not the only one at WellPoint cashing in shares. So far in 2006, seven insiders have combined to sell more than $45 million in company stock, according to Thomson Financial.
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Call Star reporter Daniel Lee at (317) 444-6311 or e-mail him at: [email protected]
