Aetna CEO: Health Insurers Face Extinction

[alryssa]

It’s not often that you hear the leader of a Fortune 100 company publicly acknowledge the imminent demise of his venerable, profitable business model

Comments

[darksumomo]

My wife worked in insurance for two decades, and she came to this same conclusion during the 90s. Health Insurance had become at best a loss-leader and at worst just a loser for the traditional insurance companies. From her perspective, medical inflation kept outpacing both the insurance companies' ability to hold costs down and the costumers' willingness to pay for the full price. For as long as I've known her, she's maintained that health insurance should be in the hands of a non-profit entity. She really likes single-payer as a solution.

[sesmo]

Curious how WellPoint make $2.9B in profit last year if that's the case. They mostly do health insurance. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/10/cost-of-employer-health-coverage-climbs-survey-finds-wal-mart-cuts-health-coverage-for-part-timers-raises-premiums.html

[sankaku_atama]

Nonetheless, he offered measured praise for the law...“For most of what has already been implemented, it has been a pretty good thing.”

BRB, gonna go look out the window for the other three horsemen.

[alryssa]

*looks out the window*

I see Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and Ron Pa-- Ohhhhh.

[lizrocks]

Do you think they drew straws as to which one would ride which horse?

[sesmo]

Conquest: Romney, and the conquest of America by the 1%
War: Santorum and the suggestion to bomb Iran, Syria, and hate everything not Catholic and American enough.
Famine: Ron Paul and the elimination of the safety net.
Death: Newt. Death & resurrection as the ghost of Republicans past.

[jessyryan]

Good.

[intrikate88]

Oh, excellent. :D I'm so glad someone at the top is seeing this. If we're going to do health insurance like this? All those leading the industry need to realize it's not the same sort of corporate industry as everything else. And I don't believe it was ever sustainable to treat stakeholders, ie, unpredictable human beings with complex needs, as mere customers to be profited from. Industry-wide change of goals and practices can't come soon enough.

[redqueenmeg]

As an Aetna victim customer, I'm OK with this.

[emofordino]

IA! aetna is the fucking worst.

[mollywobbles867]

I use them and I haven't had any problems. Of course, I haven't been in an accident or hospitalized. ::knocks on wood::

What has your experience been?

[txvoodoo]

Having had Aetna, UHC, and BCBS of Texas, I can say that Aetna isn't the worst. That'd be UHC.