Connecticut’s Office of State Ethics will decide Thursday whether to investigate insurance commissioner Katharine Wade’s ties with Cigna amid the company’s merger with Anthem, according to an article from the International Business Times.
Wade’s ethics in the Cigna-Anthem merger were called into question when IBT published its investigation into the commissioner’s ties with Connecticut-based payer Cigna early this month. Before Wade became insurance commissioner--and a major player in the merger--she lobbied and worked for Cigna for 21 years, and still has extensive family ties to the corporation, says the article.
Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy, who appointed Wade, is well-fed by Cigna and Anthem money, according to IBT. The bulk of the funds from the health payers and their lobbying firms were donated the year the merger was announced, says the publication.
With 53 million people’s health insurance premiums at stake, a possible conflict-of-interest case is brewing, reports IBT, and advocacy groups have called for Wade to step away from merger proceedings to no avail.
To be clear, the State Ethics committee Thursday will not be deciding if Wade has a conflict of interest that requires her to recuse herself from the process, says the article, but whether there will be an official review of Wade’s ethics during merger talks. Though, the board voting on the formal review will largely be made up of Malloy appointees and allies, IBT discovered.
The Cigna-Anthem merger proceedings have been rocky at best, as FierceHealthPayer previously reported. The Hartford Courant last year called for Wade to extricate herself from the merger due to her personal history with Cigna.
To learn more:
- read IBT's article