By Kay Tillow
The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Ky.), letters, Aug. 23, 2016
No one should cry for Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini over his claim of losses in the Obamacare exchange plans. Bertolini raked in $27.9 million in total compensation in 2015.
Just last May, he was positive about the Affordable Care Act, stating that Aetnaās losses were nothing in comparison to the $2 billion Aetna would have had to spend to acquire those customers without the health care law.
Since Obamacare passed in March 2010, Aetna’s stock has soared 270 percent. Cigna and Humana have risen about the same. UnitedHealth Group, which is also pulling out of the exchanges, is up 371 percent. During that time the S&P 500 Index has increased only 99 percent.
Under the ACA, the insurers are getting billions each year to subsidize their insurance plans. No matter how much money we throw at these companies, the market will never work to fix our health care system.
No other industrialized country in the world allows private insurers to control their health care. Those countries have better health outcomes than the U.S. while spending, on average, about half as much per capita as the U.S.
Fixing health care means we must move to a single payer system as proposed by Congressman John Conyers in HR 676. We will save both lives and money.
Kay Tillow resides in Louisville.