My wife and I bought 5 shares of WellPoint (or Anthem, or Blue Cross) in 2005 and have been coming to these annual meetings since. We’re all getting to know each other. Many of the WellPoint employees seem to genuinely like us. But not all.

Private insurers are the scorpion in the story of turtle and the scorpion. They have proven for decades they will do anything to avoid regulation, and will always put profits over the health care needs of regular Americans. Heck, by law, as for-profit corporations, they are required to put profits over everything else. Democrats let insurance companies hop on their back, and now they are smack-dab in the middle of the river with them. Don’t scream when they sting you–it is just their nature.

I still can’t quite wrap my head around it the fact that Obama thought it was a good idea, in midst of 9.6% unemployment, and on the day after the census bureau announces that 1 in 7 Americans are living in poverty, to show up at the gated Connecticut mansion of a guy named Rich Richman and tell a privileged few at a private $30,000 a plate fundraiser that people who see their glass “half empty” are pessimists and that the health care bill represents “the most productive, progressive legislative session in at least a generation.”

On Friday afternoon May 21, WellPoint released the official tally for the voting from their contentions annual shareholders meeting on the 18th. Our resolution to return Wellpoint to non-profit status received over 30 million votes, 9.4% of the shares voted. That is a jaw dropping vote of no confidence in the management of this company. But the story isn’t over yet. Our shareholder resolution for WellPoint to return to its non-profit Blue Cross roots will be back next year. And the SEC has proposed a new regulation that would allow shareholders to directly nominate corporate board members called “Proxy Access.” If this goes into effect this fall as expected, I intend to run for the WellPoint board.

You remember Joe Szakos, right? He’s the courageous head of the Virginia Organizing Project, our affiliate in VA. He’s also an Anthem Blue Cross customer, and his rates just increased 14%. The same week, he received an email from Blue Cross bashing a public health insurance option.