Wilmington – Delaware Cancer Consortium Chairman William Bowser and Delaware Insurance Commissioner Matt Denn Friday called upon self-insured companies in Delaware that use Aetna to administer their employees’ health insurance benefits to reject Aetna’s recent decision to forbid doctors from using their medical judgment when administering anesthesia during colonoscopies. 

Bowser and Commissioner Denn said that Aetna’s actions, if left unchecked, would harm the state’s efforts to reduce cancer mortality because Aetna’s policy may discourage people from getting colonoscopies.

Commissioner Denn said that he has confirmed that the State of Delaware has already informed Aetna that the state rejected Aetna’s decision for State of Delaware employees whose benefits are administered by Aetna.

“Whether or not what Aetna did was legally defensible, it was short-sighted and harmful to our state’s cancer prevention efforts,” said Commissioner Denn, who was an original member of the state’s cancer task force before becoming insurance commissioner.  “Many of Aetna’s customers are self-insured, so Mr. Bowser and I are encouraging other self-insured employers to follow the state’s example and reject this new barrier to cancer prevention.” 

Many companies and organizations are “self-insured,” meaning that they pay the actual costs of medical care for their employees, though they often have insurance company act as the administrator of the plan. Most large companies are self-insured, as is state government. Among the Delaware companies that use Aetna to administer their self-insured health benefits are Dupont, Avon, Computer Science Corporation, and Liberty Mutual Insurance.

“Delaware has made huge strides over the past several years in encouraging colorectal screening to the point that our screening rate is now the best in America,” Bowser said. “This action by Aetna, if it is not reversed, will send us in the opposite direction, and will directly interfere with Delaware’s efforts to reduce cancer mortality.  I encourage Aetna’s self-insured customers to reject Aetna’s actions, and I encourage Aetna to reconsider its decision for its individual and family policyholders.”

Commissioner Denn also said that if Aetna’s decision was not reversed, he would ask the General Assembly to consider taking remedial action when it returns to work in March.

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