After a round of early retirements aimed at reducing operating costs, some Aetna employees are anxiously waiting to see what their company’s purchase of Humana will mean for jobs.
Recent court filings in Washington, D.C., where a federal judge will decide whether he will allow the merger to go forward, give some hints.
Hartford-based Aetna announced in July 2015 it would buy Humana for $34 billion, after considering buying Cigna, and fending off an advance from United Healthcare. The Department of Justice sued in July 2016 to stop the purchase.
Lawyers from the Department of Justice criticized Aetna’s rigor in projecting cost savings as a result of the merger. But, they said, the one piece of evidence they did think was solid was “$72.3 million in savings from the elimination of duplicative full-time-equivalent employees from the commercial group business.”
Aetna, which employs about 50,100 workers nationwide, would gain about 60,000 employees if it buys Louisville, Ky.-based Humana for $34 billion.
Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini told investor analysts in February that Aetna will make Louisville its headquarters for Medicare, Medicaid and other government insurance plans. He has not said where the combined headquarters would be.
A great deal of Aetna’s current Medicare workforce is not based in Connecticut as it established most of its presence in the Medicare Advantage market by buying Coventry, which is located just outside Washington, D.C. Coventry was an insurer that specialized in Medicare Advantage, Medicare drug coverage and Medicaid managed care contracts.
Department of Justice lawyers said Aetna’s Medicare Advantage team includes more than 3,000 employees. They said the team that runs its Medicare supplement business at a national level is 400 people.
Before the exits because of early retirements, Aetna had about 6,000 workers in Connecticut. The number of employees in Connecticut has dropped “pretty substantially” and is no longer the company’s largest site in the country, Bertolini said at the last annual meeting.
Date: January 13, 2016