Media Coverage of Penn ACTION at Aetna’s Annual Meeting in Philadelphia

Coverage in the Wall St. Journal:

Aetna Shareholder Meeting Halted By Protesters

By Dinah Wisenberg Brin

Of  DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

PHILADELPHIA (Dow Jones)–Aetna Inc.’s (AET) annual shareholder meeting was
halted temporarily when a group of protesters pushed through the doors to
complain that the health insurance industry was trying to undermine the
federal government’s health-care reform.

The meeting resumed about 10 minutes later, and no arrests were made;
however, the incident shows how the health-care overhaul approved last year
by the federal government remains a heated issue.

Aetna’s meeting had just gotten underway, and Chairman and Chief Executive
Mark Bertolini was speaking to shareholders, when protesters shouting and
carrying signs and bullhorns burst through the doors of the Le Meriden hotel
meeting room.

Aetna security whisked Bertolini out a side door, while other security
people tried to restrain protesters. After the meeting, Bertolini said a
protester had charged toward him. When the meeting resumed a few minutes
later, the CEO didn’t continue his prepared remarks and instead proceeded
with business.

Two male protesters were temporarily hand-cuffed outside the meeting room
while police spoke to them and a woman, but a police spokeswoman said later
there were no arrests, no injuries and nothing requiring further police
attention. Philadelphia police estimated there were about 30 protesters,
although about only a third or fewer actually entered the room.

Protesters who disrupted or picketed near the meeting included members of
Action United, Penn Action and the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, all
members of the coalition Health Care for America Now, which planned the
event, according to the Pennsylvania HCAN affiliate.

“Aetna’s been hypocritical all along about health-care reform,” saying it
supports a health coverage overhaul while spending millions of dollars to
defeat changes, said Marc Stier, executive director of Penn Action and state
HCAN director. He referenced reports that the major health insurers gave
tens of millions of dollars to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in an attempt to
defeat or change the overhaul legislation in Congress.

In response, Aetna said it has been working on health-care reform since
2005. The company added that it has worked with the government and groups
like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the industry’s America’s Health
Insurance Plans “to educate the American people about the negative
implications of a public option in health care reform.”

After the meeting, Bertolini told Dow Jones Newswires, “Everybody is
entitled to their opinion, they just are not entitled to disrupt a meeting”
and create an unsafe environment. Bertolini was presiding over his first
annual meeting in the top job.

The company, in a formal statement, called the disruption “inappropriate,
uncivil and unsafe.”

Stier said protesters weren’t trying to harm Bertolini and may have moved
toward the podium to get to the microphone.

Protesters wearing T-shirts saying Action United shouted, “We want health
care, Aetna unfair,” as they entered the room. A woman who was part of the
group stood in the middle of the meeting room and shouted, “Stop defeating
Obama’s health care reform.”

According to its website, Action United was formed last year “to advance the
interests of low and moderate income families around Pennsylvania.” The
group is funded by member dues and has no political affiliate, according to
its executive director, Craig Robbins.

He said Aetna was targeted mostly because it was holding its meeting in
Philadelphia and that the focus could have been “any number of these big
insurance companies that are at war with health reform.”

During the meeting, Aetna shareholders approved an investor resolution
calling on the company to split the roles of chairman and chief executive.
The company will consider the recommendation, Bertolini said.

-By Dinah Wisenberg Brin, Dow Jones Newswires; 215-982-5582;
dinah.brin@dowjones.com

–Peter Loftus and Thomas Gryta contributed to this article.

————————————————————————————
Coverage in the Philadelphia Inquirer
Posted on Fri, May. 20, 2011

Protesters disrupt Aetna’s shareholders meeting in Center City

By Jane M. Von Bergen INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Protesters crashed Aetna Inc.’s annual shareholders meeting in Philadelphia
on Friday morning, accusing the Connecticut-based health insurer of publicly
supporting President Obama’s health-care plan while privately funneling
money to its opponents – in particular, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Aetna chairman Mark T. Bertolini had just gone to the microphone at Le
Meridien Philadelphia, a Center City hotel, when the protesters walked into
the meeting, chanting and carrying signs.
Hotel security and police hurried the group of about 20 out, detaining three
of them for 30 minutes. No arrests were made, said one of the organizers of
the protest.

“Unfortunately, Aetna’s shareholder meeting this morning was disrupted by a
group of protesters,” the company said in a statement. “We believe this
disruption was inappropriate, uncivil and unsafe. Aetna has been a strong
proponent of health-care reform and has been working to shape the future of
health care for the past decade.”

After the group was removed from the hotel’s third-floor lobby, where coffee
and tea where being served for shareholders, the protest resumed outside.

Among those protesting was Alicia Dorsey, of Mount Airy. Dorsey said she is
on welfare now, but will soon go off it next month as she begins her new
marketing business. “Health reform is important for America’s small
businesses,” she said.

The protesters based their accusations on a November story by Bloomberg News
that used sources to connect an $86.2 million donation made to the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce in 2009 from America’s Health Insurance Plans, an
industry lobbying group.

The donation, which was noted in the Chamber’s tax returns, was one of the
largest to the business advocacy groups, and helped pay for advertisements,
polling and efforts to drum up grass roots opposition to Obama’s health
plan, a Chamber spokesman told Bloomberg. Neither the Chamber nor AHIP would
comment on the source of the money.

On Friday, one of Aetna’s chief spokesmen, Mohit Ghose, who previously
worked for AHIP, declined to comment.

However, the company did issue a statement Friday saying that “we also
worked through our testimony to Congress, our meetings on Capitol Hill, and
through the efforts of such groups as AHIP and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
to educate the American people about the negative implications of a public
option in health-care reform.”

The agenda for Friday’s meeting included the election of directors, a
nonbinding vote on executive compensation, and approval of Aetna’s proposed
employee stock purchase plan.

Several of the protesters had obtained proxy tickets to attend the meeting
from shareholders, but they had not correctly completed all the paperwork
that would have allowed them to stay.
Initially, they were allowed to remain in the meeting, but they were ejected
after the disruption began, said Marc Stier, director of Health Care for
America Now Pennsylvania, the group that organized the protest with Action
United, another advocacy group.

—————————————————–
Coverage in the Hartford Courant
Protesters Burst Into Aetna’s Annual Shareholder Meeting

By Matthew Sturdevant
May 20, 2011 2:30 PM

Protesters interrupted Hartford-based Aetna’s annual shareholder meeting
Friday in Philadelphia, bursting into the room and chanting, “We need health
care; Aetna’s not fair.”

The protest involved a scuffle;  three people were seized by Philadelphia
police and released after about 30 minutes, said Marc Stier of Penn ACTION,
a progressive grassroots advocacy group.

The protest was organized by the Health Care for America Now coalition and
involved members of Action United, Philadelphia Unemployment Project and
Penn ACTION.

Protesters said Aetna executives and board members fled the room.

Action United member Alicia Dorsey said aloud during the protest, “We are
here because for years Aetna has said it supports health care reform. Yet
during that time, it has been funneling millions of dollar of secret
contributions to the Chamber of Commerce, which ran ads against the
(Affordable Care Act) and members of Congress that supported it.”

Protesters also criticized executive pay at the healthinsurance company.

“People are entitled to their opinions,” said Aetna spokesman Fred Laberge
said. “However, we believe this disruption was inappropriate, uncivil and
unsafe. Aetna has been a strong proponent of health care reform and has been
working to shape the future of health care for thepast decade. Every day our
34,000 employees, including more than 4,000 clinicians, work to ensure our
members receive quality and compassionate care.

————————————————————————————————
Coverage by the AP for story that ran all over the world

Protesters disrupt Aetna meeting in Philadelphia
The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA A group of protesters briefly delayed Aetna’s annual
shareholders meeting in Philadelphia, but police say there were no arrests.

Aetna Inc. spokesman Fred Laberge says the meeting was delayed for several
minutes when a group of health care protesters came in the room chanting,
“We want health care, Aetna’s not fair.”

Security asked them to leave and the meeting resumed after several minutes.
Laberge says Aetna is not sure why it was targeted and that the Hartford,
Conn.-based company has been a strong proponent of health care reform.

A spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Police Department says no arrests were
made.