Attorney General Mike Cox is taking a look at executive compensation and bonuses at Blue Cross / Blue Shield as the FREEP uncovers some ugly numbers.

Still, Blue Cross paid more than $1.54 million in compensation to its 34 outside board directors in 2008, the same year it lost $144.9 million...

To offset losses, Blue Cross, a nonprofit insurer and Michigan's legally designated insurer of last resort, plans to eliminate 1,000 jobs this year and has asked the state to approve rate hikes for its individual insurance policies. If approved, rates for individual or nongroup coverage would rise 56%; 42% for those with group conversion policies that extend coverage an employer once provided them at work, and 31% for supplemental Medicare policies.

Those rate hikes will amount to well over one-hundred dollars a month for many customers and will price them right out of health care coverage.  Anyone want to give an over / under on how long it'll take someone in the state legislature to propose taxing those bonuses at 90 percent?

It is worth noting, though, that many non-profits don't pay their boards at all.  It is a voluntary position.  Then again, the Blues really sort of stretch the concept of the non-profit to the point of absurdity anyways.  

And speaking of absurdity, what's a morning browsing the news without psychics and chihuahuas?  Maybe the best Detroit News headline of the year:

"Wind-tossed chihuahua found safe; owners credit psychic"

That's right.  I said Detroit News, not Weekly World News.  A "pet psychic" in Michigan apparently helped a woman find her lost dog by suggesting she look in the woods across the street from where the dog went missing.

If Madame Mystic is available on week days maybe she could help Lansing's Democrats find that lost budget solution.