Aetna

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Aetna Inc. said it will take a charge of up to $105 million in the third quarter because of higher managed health care costs, causing earnings to fall short of estimates.The insurance and health care services company's shares fell 10.5 percent after the announcement, and are down about 31 percent since August on mounting concerns about rising medical costs and competition.The news reflects the troubles that Aetna is having expanding into the managed health care business, particularly in integrating its $8.2 billion purchase of U.S. Healthcare Corp.

Can 700,000 promise-keeping men stand tall in the center of Gomorrah without seizing it?A governor who gets rockfish back in the Giant is re-electable after all.Commercial Credit gobbled Primerica which ate Travelers which wolfed Shearson Lehman and part of Aetna and Salomon, by which time Commercial Credit was invisible.God is on the side of the deep bullpens.Pub Date: 9/29/97

Taking the second step in a new strategy, Integrated Health Services of Owings Mills announced an agreement with Aetna U.S. Healthcare yesterday to offer Medicare HMO plans to nursing home residents in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Massachusetts.Integrated announced a similar deal for Florida two weeks ago with a different HMO operator, Humana.The arrangements allow the HMOs to enroll residents in Integrated's long-term care facilities -- a market they have not previously reached -- and pays Integrated for providing primary care with its own doctors and nurses.

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Travelers/Aetna Property Casualty Corp.'s third-quarter earnings exceeded analysts' expectations as the insurer boosted sales of policies to individuals.The fourth-largest U.S. property and casualty insurer said yesterday that its earnings, excluding gains from investment sales, totaled $246.1 million, or 62 cents a share, for the quarter ended Sept. 30.The earnings exceeded Wall Street's consensus estimate of 55 cents a share, based on a survey of eight analysts by Zacks Investment Research.

Aetna Health Plans of the Mid Atlantic yesterday announced a contract with Johns Hopkins Hospital and its school of medicine to provide care to Aetna members.For Hopkins, which has about 50 contracts with managed-care insurers, Aetna was the last major managed-care organization in the area with which it did not have a contract.Aetna of the Mid Atlantic, with headquarters in Falls Church, Va., covers 390,000 people in the Baltimore-Washington-Northern Virginia area, including about 115,000 in greater Baltimore.

U.S. Healthcare Inc., the East Coast HMO company, said yesterday its first-quarter profits fell 14 percent due to expenses associated with its pending buyout by Aetna Life & Casualty Inc. The company reported earning $82 million, or 53 cents per share, for the three months ending March 31, compared with $94 million, or 59 cents per share, for the same period last year.U.S. Healthcare said it incurred $20.5 million, or 13 cents per share, in after-tax costs in the $8.9 billion sale to Aetna, which is still subject to approval by shareholders of both companies and federal and state regulators.

CONSOLIDATION of Aetna Life & Casualty Co. with U.S. Healthcare Inc. to form the nation's largest managed health-care company shows how breakneck changes in the private sector are outstripping government reform efforts. While Congress debates popular fringe issues and states struggle against Medicaid costs, insurors, managed-care companies, Blues, hospitals and doctors are fighting, merging and reinventing themselves as a confused citizenry tries to cope.Survival is the common denominator.

What does U.S. Healthcare know that's worth $8.9 billion?Aetna Casualty and Life Co., the 143-year-old insurance giant, announced last week that it was spending that much to acquire the aggressive health maintenance organization -- helping position Aetna to navigate a rapidly-changing health market."

Aetna Life & Casualty Co. announced yesterday that it would buy U.S. Healthcare in an $8.9 billion deal that would forge the largest managed-care company in the United States, reaching one in 12 Americans.The purchase demonstrates how managed care is overtaking traditional health insurance. It also accelerates a trend toward consolidation and the blending of roles between traditional insurers, managed-care companies and providers.In becoming the largest, Aetna vaults over United HealthCare, which itself jumped into the No. 1 spot with a huge takeover -- the $1.6 billion purchase last June of MetraHealth, an insurer that represented the merged health businesses of Travelers Group Inc. and Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.Another example of the consolidation trend was provided last week, when Columbia/HCA, a for-profit hospital chain, bought most of the operating units of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Ohio for $300 million.

Workers at Aetna Life and Casualty Co. used to call their employer "Mother Aetna." But with the insurer cutting thousands of jobs in the past several years, the old nickname no longer seems to fit. Aetna employees are now realizing they can't count on a company to take care of them.Neither can most of the rest of us. Instead, we need to think about making our careers portable. That way, the next time your company restructures, your department downsizes or your boss departs abruptly, your future won't hang in the balance.