U.S. judge finds that Aetna misled the public about its reasons for quitting Obamacare
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Source: Los Angeles Times
"Aetna claimed this summer that it was pulling out of all but four of the 15 states where it was providing Obamacare individual insurance because of a business decision it was simply losing too much money on the Obamacare exchanges.
Now a federal judge has ruled that that was a rank falsehood. In fact, says Judge John D. Bates, Aetna made its decision at least partially in response to a federal antitrust lawsuit blocking its proposed $37-billion merger with Humana. Aetna threatened federal officials with the pullout before the lawsuit was filed, and followed through on its threat once it was filed. Bates made the observations in the course of a ruling he issued Monday blocking the merger."
"The judges conclusions about Aetnas real reasons for pulling out of Obamacare as opposed to the rationalization the company made in public are crucial for the debate over the fate of the Affordable Care Act. Thats because the companys withdrawal has been exploited by Republicans to justify repealing the act. Just last week, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) cited Aetnas action on the Charlie Rose show, saying that it proved how shaky the exchanges were.
Bates found that this rationalization was largely untrue. In fact, he noted, Aetna pulled out of some states and counties that were actually profitable to make a point in its lawsuit defense and then misled the public about its motivations. Bates analysis relies in part on a smoking gun letter to the Justice Department in which Chief Executive Mark Bertolini explicitly ties Aetnas participation in Obamacare to the DOJs actions on the merger, which we reported in August. But it goes much further.
Smoking gun? Aetna threatened to quit Obamacare if the government blocked its Humana merger"
Read more: https://news.google.com/news/amp?caurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%2Fbusiness%2Fhiltzik%2Fla-fi-hiltzik-aetna-obamacare-20170123-story%2Camp.html#a-e9c9cc92-52dc-44b8-b982-8424fda37471
So.. they tried to extort the feds to get their merger, then when they didn't get what they wanted the lied to the public to try to make the ACA look bad when in fact they were profitable in many markets.. Wow...
tenorly
(2,037 posts)Par for the course in corporate America.
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)DonViejo
(60,536 posts)Duplicate of http://upload.democraticunderground.com/10141675497