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Indybay Feature

Bertolini is not only an idiot

by Bruce Loisel (dbruceloisel [at] gmail.com)
Aetna (under the sage leadership of CEO Mark Bertolini) just took a billion dollar loss. So clearly Berolini is an idiot – although Aetna won’t have to pay federal taxes for taking this loss, just like his buddy Donald Trump (my Fed. Tax bill for Jan. was $586 dollars – what was yours?).
In an article in the Washington post (2/15/2017) Carolyn Johnson wrote the following, “Aetna chief executive says Obamacare is in a ‘death spiral. ’Aetna chief executive Mark Bertolini said Wednesday that the Affordable Care Act's exchanges — the marketplaces where consumers can buy individual health coverage under President Barack Obama's signature health-care law — are in a “death spiral.”

Bertolini's remarks at the Wall Street Journal's the Future of Healthcare event came a day after the official end of his company's proposed merger with the health insurer Humana — a divorce that will cost Aetna a $1 billion breakup fee. It also came a day after Humana announced that it would pull out of all of its remaining ACA exchanges for 2018, arguing that the risk pool was unbalanced because not enough healthy people were signing up for insurance compared with the number of sick people.

“That logic shows just how much the risk pool is deteriorating in the ACA and how poorly structured the funding mechanism and premium model is,” Bertolini said. “I think you will see a lot more withdrawals this year of plans.”

So let me get this straight…Aetna (under the sage leadership of CEO Mark Bertolini) just took a billion dollar loss. So clearly Berolini an idiot – although Aetna won’t have to pay federal taxes for taking this loss, just like his buddy Donald Trump (my Fed. Tax bill for Jan. was $586 dollars – what was yours?).

However, Aetna is in the business of insuring people so they can live healthy happy lives!

But since there’s not enough profit in insuring sick people “arguing that the risk pool was unbalanced because not enough healthy people were signing up for insurance compared with the number of sick people.”

So you just throw in the towel penalize sick poor people by cutting healthcare coverage?

By letting the system “implode” (Trumps words) does that mean letting people go without insurance coverage and people suffering and will die. So the message is Bertolini is not only an idiot, but heartless, greedy, and imbecilic as well.

Aetna, I’m glad I “met ya.”
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Comments (Hide Comments)
by Mike Novack
This is the term for what happens when people who think they will not need insurance are allowed not to purchase it.

The problem is NOT that a health insurance company can't make money insuring the sick but that the can't make money insuring ONLY the sick. Not at rates anybody could afford. If EVERYBODY had to have the insurance, the companies would have no problem designing the "products" (I HATE that term when we are discussing insurance).

The solution could be like here in MASS (penalty if you don't have insurance) which leaves the insurance companies their role. Or the much simpler "single payer" solution that most of the developed world uses.
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