In an outstanding new column entitled, "Death Panels: Fact and Fiction," CIGNA whistleblower and Deadly Spin author Wendell Potter reveals that Aetna medical directors no longer report to chief medical officers: they report to regional business managers.
Take a second and let that fact sink in real deep. This is an Aetna abomination. It is our worst fears about the amoral practices of the mega-profit health insurance companies realized.
Like Wendell Potter, Arthur "Abbie" Liebowitz, former chief medical officer at Aetna, is a health care hero for speaking out against one of the nation's biggest corporate bullies.
Important details below the fold.
We should not be surprised that Aetna -- without fear of employing the cliche -- puts "profits before people," because now-Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) nailed the company for aggressive anti-patient, pro-profits policies well over 10 years ago:
"Aetna is being penny-wise and patient-foolish," Blumenthal said, at an afternoon press conference in Hartford. "We are sending a message to the industry that we will scrutinize them closely." Blumenthal said he will look at whether the financial incentives Aetna uses to keep costs down actually hurt patients by rewarding doctors who deliver less care. He said the company's policies, while not unique, are more aggressive than other HMOs.
Seems like some "people" (Aetna is a person according to our Supreme Court, right?) never change.
According to Potter, Liebowitz fought Aetna's desire to have those making the life-or-death decisions report to business managers for years, but finally gave up when Aetna refused to budge:
One of the people they might want to call to testify is the former chief medical officer at Aetna, Arthur “Abbie” Liebowitz [Potter is suggesting here that Liebowitz would make a good witness in a congressional investigation of for-profit insurance death panels]. In an interview for a report written last year for the Center for American Progress, Liebowitz explained the pressure that is exerted on corporate medical directors— medical directors who now report to regional business managers, rather than chief medical officers, as was previously the norm.
“The concept was that business leaders had P and L (profit and loss) responsibility for the region,” Liebowitz was quoted as saying. “The business guys said if I have responsibility for profits and losses I have to control for the things that account for my costs. The biggest things affecting cost was medical cost delivery.”
Liebowitz said he fought the change in reporting relationships “until the very end.” He left Aetna in 2001.
Of course, Wendell Potter knows all too well the consequences of big-profit insurers putting their bottom line before saving the lives of patients:
The question is: who else may Cigna or Aetna have murdered by delaying or denying care? We already know that 46,000 Americans die annually as a result of insurance company lobbying preventing this nation from having the universal, government-regulated, single-payer system of health care it needs and deserves.
I'll end with a simple fact -- again, let it soak in: Aetna medical directors -- the only people with any real medical knowledge at Aetna -- report to "regional business managers" and not other medical professionals.
That's seriously sick. And Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini, as well as his entire team of overpaid corporate executives, should be ashamed.
Feel free to contact Aetna and make yourself heard.
Oh, and then, make sure to support California's single-payer California One Care, Vermont's rapidly advancing single-payer legislation, and Connecticut's public option, SustiNet.
Sarah Palin, don't worry about the "death panels" -- single payer will be putting them out of business soon enough! Wink, wink, wink -- you betcha!
We know Aetna's CEO Bertolini just loves to whine and fear monger about a robust public option in his own mansion's back yard.