Sanders: Aetna’s Obamacare Threat Shows What “Corporate Control Looks Like”
(COMMON DREAMS) Nika Knight, August 17, 2016 — Healthcare giant Aetna directly threatened the federal government by vowing to pull out of Obamacare if its proposed merger to Humana was not approved, revealed a letter by the company’s CEO sent in July and reported on Wednesday.
The letter, obtained by the Huffington Post through a Freedom of Information Act request, proves what many observers have suspected and what the company has been denying: that its decision to pull out of most of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health exchanges was a bargaining chip in its effort to achieve the controversial merger.
Aetna’s threatening letter was authored by Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini, who would have “personally [made] up to $131 million” if the Humana merger had gone through, as International Business Times reporter David Sirota observed last month.
The Justice Department sued to block the merger last month.
Bernie Sanders tweeted a link to the Huffington Post’s reporting, calling the article a “must-read” and condemning the government for giving so much power to corporations like Aetna: