Connecticut insurance commissioner Katharine Wade has been slapped with a proposed maximum fine by the state Freedom of Information Commission for allegedly withholding her agency’s analysis of the botched Aetna-Humana merger from health and consumer organizations.
The
Hartford Courant reports that the fine was the result of a complaint by three civic organizations in the state. Connecticut Campaign for Consumer Choice, the Connecticut Citizen Action Group and the Universal Healthcare Foundation of Connecticut filed the complaint against the beleaguered commissioner.
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A decision from a federal court shot down the proposed merger of the two insurance giants, upholding the arguments of the US Department of Justice and eight states that sued against the deal.
The court did not give weight to the companies’ arguments that the Aetna-Humana merger would create millions of dollars in efficiencies and ultimately benefit their clients. Aetna dropped its $37 billion offer for Humana a month after the January court decision.
According to the Courant report, staff attorney and hearing officer Lisa Fein Siegel wrote on the proposed decision against Wade: “Commissioner Wade, acting in part through her deputy commissioners, is the official directly responsible for denying the complainant of its right of prompt access to non-exempt public records.
“It is found that the exemptions claimed by Commissioner Wade were entirely without merit, and it is also found that the Commissioner’s refusal to submit records for in camera inspection and to provide an index of exempt records demonstrates an unreasonable attempt to avoid a long established process of determining whether a public record is subject to disclosure.”
The proposal also recommended that the commissioner be fined the maximum penalty of $1,000.
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the insurance department, Donna Tommelleo, said that the department takes its obligations under the freedom of information law “seriously.”
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