Free Republic

Here’s everything you need to know about how often Mount Etna erupts and how it affects travel and tourism. Mount Etna, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, has been making headlines in the last few years thanks to dramatic eruptions. It lies on the Italian island of Sicily and looms over the city of Catania. This week, Catania airport was forced to close temporarily and driving restrictions were put in place following an eruption that spewed ash over the surrounding area. If you’re thinking of booking a holiday to Catania and eastern Sicily, you may be concerned that volcanic...

(Reuters) - Health insurer Aetna Inc has been sued for allegedly discriminating against beneficiaries that are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other gender identity iterations (LGBT+) by requiring them to pay more out of pocket for fertility treatments. In a proposed class action filed Monday in federal court in Manhattan, plaintiff Emma Goidel said she and her spouse were forced to spend nearly $45,000 for fertility treatments as a result of Aetna's policy, which required same-sex couples to pay for fertility treatment out of pocket before becoming eligible for coverage.

One of the nation’s biggest health insures is waiving patient payments for hospital stays tied to the coronavirus. CVS Health’s insurer Aetna said Wednesday that many of its customers will not have to make co-payments or other forms of cost sharing if they wind up admitted to a hospital in the insurer’s provider network. The move could save those patients thousands of dollars, depending on their coverage and how much health care they’ve used so far this year. The waiver lasts through June 1. It applies to the insurer’s 3.6 million customers who have fully-insured coverage, which is usually offered...

New York City is halting a $9.6 million incentive package offered to Aetna to move its headquarters to the city. The insurance giant announced in June that it would move its headquarters to New York City beginning in late 2018 after nearly two centuries in Hartford, Connecticut. But those plans were put on hold after CVS Health Corp. said in December that it was buying Aetna for $69 billion in a deal that would help the drugstore chain reach deeper into customer health care and protect a key client. At that time, Aetna said all of its locations would be...

Cara Pressman sobbed in the big red chair in her living room. The 15-year-old tried to absorb the devastating news relayed by her parents: that their insurance company, Aetna, denied her for a minimally invasive brain surgery that could end the seizures that have haunted her since she was 9 years old. “When my parents told me, I went kind of blank and started crying,” she said. “I cried for like an hour.” Her friends had been lined up to visit her in the hospital for the surgery three days away, on Monday, October 23. Between tears, she texted them...

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a strong positive open on Monday, as sentiment was boosted by news that the U.S. Senate narrowly passed a major tax bill over the weekend. Consequently, the news put a smile on investors faces ahead of Monday's open, with the Dow Jones industrial average pointing to higher open, by more than 200 points, at 4:00 a.m. ET. U.S. stocks finished in the red Friday after a report emerged stating that former national security advisor Michael Flynn was directed by Trump to talk to Russians. Shifting to Monday, investors will be poring over news that...

CVS Health is expected to announce plans to acquire Aetna for roughly $69 billion in cash and stock in a first-of-its kind deal aimed at fending off challenges in retail and health care, sources familiar with the situation told CNBC on Sunday. The deal is one of the year's largest so far. It comes as insurers are under pressure to lower medical costs and retailers are under attack from new competitors, including an increasingly powerful Amazon. It creates the first health-care triple threat, combining CVS's pharmacy and pharmacy benefit manager platform with Aetna's insurance business.

Thousands of people with HIV received mailed letters from Aetna last month that may have disclosed their HIV status on the envelope. The letters, which Aetna said were sent to approximately 12,000 people, were meant to relay a change in pharmacy benefits. Text visible through a small window on the envelopes listed the patients’ names and suggested a change in how they would fill the prescription for their treatment for the virus. “People have been devastated. We’ve had a number of people tell us they had chosen not to disclose their HIV status to family members — but this is...

Healthcare insurer Aetna inadvertently revealed thousands of people’s HIV statuses in a mailing about new medication options to about 12,000 people last month, according to the Legal Action Center and the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania. The mishap occurred after Aetna mailed the notice in an envelope with a name and address window large enough to show the beginning of the letter, which addresses the patient and their usage of HIV medication.

With the September deadline for insurers to decide whether they are in or out of the Obamacare exchanges fast approaching, some insurers are opting to get out now. Aetna announced it was getting out of the Obamacare business in May. Today, the company announced it was leaving the one exchange where it had considered staying because of a Medicaid contract. From the Washington Examiner: The company said during an earnings call that it was withdrawing from the exchange in Nevada, the last state it had considered staying in. Aetna was leaving the possibility open because it was applying for...

Health insurer Aetna announced Thursday that it would completely withdraw from the Obamacare exchanges in 2018, after seeing its profits soar from reducing its participation this year. The company said during an earnings call that it was withdrawing from the exchange in Nevada, the last state it had considered staying in. Aetna was leaving the possibility open because it was applying for a Medicaid managed care contract, and the state gives extra consideration to insurers that participate in both programs.

Implosion: The law was, after all, just a "step on the path to single payer." Last year, you may recall that one of the nation’s largest insurers, Aetna, announced it had suffered major losses under the failing Affordable Care Act. As a result, it was pulling out of many ACA exchanges. The company said it intended to soldier on in just four states - Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska, and Virginia. Back then, Aetna claimed losses of almost $450 million. A few weeks ago, they announced that number has risen to $700 million since 2014, and they trimmed Iowa and Virginia from...

Guy has written extensively on the death spiral of Obamacare. From rising premiums, loss of insurance, and health care companies feeling the financial squeeze, President Obama’s health care overhaul is crumbling. In North Carolina, Blue Cross Blue Shield, which is the state’s largest insurer that offers Obamacare plans to all of its 100 counties, says the financial losses have been immense. CEO Brad Wilson told The News and Observer in February of 2016: “In year one [2014], five percent of our ACA customers consumed $830 million in health care costs. That’s how much money went out of our door to...

Health insurer Aetna Inc said on Wednesday it will exit the 2018 Obamacare individual insurance market in Delaware and Nebraska - the two remaining states where it had offered the plans. Aetna had previously announced plans to exit the individual commercial market in Virginia and Iowa. It has now "completely exited the exchanges," the company said in an emailed statement. The insurer attributed the losses to "marketplace structural issues, that have led to co-op failures and carrier exits, and subsequent risk pool deterioration." Aetna said it had 964,000 individual commercial plan members as of the end of 2016, but that...

Health insurance giant Aetna said Wednesday that it will not be participating in any Obamacare exchanges in 2018. "Our individual commercial products lost nearly $700 million between 2014 and 2016, and are projected to lose more than $200 million in 2017 despite a significant reduction in membership," T.J. Crawford, Aetna spokesman, said in an email. The reason for the losses, he said, came from structural issues within the exchanges "that have led to co-op failures and carrier exits, and subsequent risk pool deterioration." He did not cite uncertainty over the future of Obamacare, as the company had done when it...

Aetna (AET)'s CEO Mark Bertolini doesn't want to charge some people more for Obamacare — but he does want the government to step up and fund the program "appropriately." Bertolini on Tuesday rejected a suggestion that Republican proposals to allow insurers to charge people with pre-existing health conditions more for Obamacare plans could prompt Aetna to return in force to individual plan marketplaces. Instead, Bertolini said on CNBC's "Closing Bell," the federal government should guarantee financial support for insurers who participate in the program, which in turn could maintain and expand health coverage for many people. Specifically, Bertolini said the...

Aetna Inc will exit the Obamacare individual insurance market in Virginia and will not offer these plans on or off the online exchange created by the Affordable Care Act, the company said on Wednesday. The company said last month that it would leave Iowa. It is selling these plans in four states in 2017.

Giant insurer Aetna said Wednesday it will not sell Obamacare plans in Virginia next year, citing expected financial losses on such plans in 2017. Aetna left open the question of whether it will sell such individual health plans anywhere in the United States. Aetna's decision to exit Virginia in 2018 comes several weeks after it said it would drop out of Iowa's individual market next year. The company was selling Obamacare plans in just two other states this year: Delaware and Nebraska. "Despite significantly reducing our exchange footprint, our individual commercial products could potentially lose more than $200 million in...

Failure was the great promise of ObamaCare. Implosion was the plan. Democrats were counting on it Remember: All of this was by design. Failure was the great promise of ObamaCare. Implosion was the plan. Democrats were counting on it, with the intention that Hillary would be in office to pick up the pieces and march the nation over the single-payer cliff. That, of course, is where the plan fell apart.

Crumbling down around us Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about the proposed merger between health insurance giants Aetna and Humana. It was big news throughout the last year. That plan has now disintegrated, and both companies are re-jiggering their plans as they move on separately. If you think ObamaCare is part of that scenario, think again. Last August, we learned of Aetna’s intentions for the ACA exchanges, and now we know Humana intends to follow suit.