Connecticut Working Families

Our press event today in front of the Aetna building in Hartford was a huge success.

The background: Aetna announced their first quarter profits today. From January 1st to March 31st of this year, Aetna made $434 million. That means they are on pace to make even more this year than the $1.7 billion in profits Aetna made last year. This announcement comes pretty close on the heels of the story of Aetna’s inflated CEO pay: Ronald Williams makes $30 million a year. It is infuriating that in the middle of Connecticut’s healthcare crisis, with hundreds of thousands uninsured, and hundreds of thousands more underinsured, Aetna can be making such extraordinary profits.

So, we wanted to respond to their announcements, and connect high CEO pay and high profits at Aetna and in the health insurance industry in general to the high cost of healthcare for people who live, work and do business.

This morning, about 50 people converged on the lawn of the Aetna building, wearing hospital robes and carrying barf bags, to unfurl a banner reading “Aetna’s Profits Are Making Us Sick.”

Aetna's profits made us sick.

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This Blog post is filed in: aetna

In 2006, Aetna’s annual profits were about $1.6 billion. Insurance industry profits (along with inflated executive pay, and huge administrative costs) go along way toward exlpaining why Americans pay so much for healthcare and get so little.

Here are some things you could get for that much money:

395,195 individual health insurance plans–one for each of Connecticut’s uninsured residents.

141,869 years of insurance coverage for an entire family.

172 new elementary schools–one for every city and town in Connecticut.

42 Lamont-Lieberman campaigns for US Senate (both sides)

8 New York Yankees baseball teams (full team’s payroll)

What else could you get for $1.6 billion?

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This Blog post is filed in: aetna healthcare reform