Bill Berenson, president of the Michigan market for Aetna, was quoted as having said: “When we started to be a threat, Blue Cross picked up the strategy.” Aetna's suit also alleges that Michigan Blues violated antitrust law “at the very time when Michigan employers and consumers were suffering from the crushing effects of the recession and increasing health care costs.”
BCBS spokesman Andy Hetzel fired back, calling Aetna's claims “sour grapes.”
Aetna's suit comes after a pending Justice Department lawsuit, filed in 2010, alleging the “Michigan Blues demanded the lowest costs for hospital services at the expense of its competitors.”
You put it all together, and it seems there's something rotten in the state of Denmark, er, Michigan.
And, while on the surface, it appears noble that Aetna is actually attempting to touch on a higher moral ground with its lawsuit by mentioning the recession, it's quite difficult to find anything positive to say about the whole health insurance industry racket, and that includes all the players, from the government, to the insurers, to the hospitals. It seems there's one huge detail that everyone has overlooked – the consumer, a.k.a. the patient.
And, ironically, these very same highbrow health insurance executives, and others, who willfully and knowingly wheel and deal their insurance packages, and by so doing, victimize those in need of medical care, are in fact shooting themselves in the foot. For, it appears they are human beings like the rest of us, just as vulnerable as us, and perhaps just as in need of medical care now, or someday from now. Perhaps the ultimate justice will be served, not through any punitive damages as determined by a judge and jury, but when said executives and others become pawns in their own game.
