Aetna's turnaround continued to pay off last year for former Chief Executive Jack Rowe with $47.9 million of compensation - $38 million of it from the exercise of stock options - while current CEO Ronald A. Williams drew a $20.9 million package without using any options.
On top of that, Rowe, who retired as Aetna's chairman last fall, was awarded stock-related units last year with a theoretical value of $16.5 million and vesting in one year. Williams' award of the "stock appreciation units" was valued at nearly $10 million and vests over three years.
The numbers, disclosed Monday in a regulatory filing for Aetna's April 27 annual shareholder meeting, were labeled "exorbitant" by a health care reform advocate.
"It's obscene that the CEO of a health insurance company would be making that much money when 400,000 of our state residents are uninsured," said Beverly Brakeman, director of the labor-community coalition Citizens for Economic Opportunity.
"It's time for the waste and profit to be taken out of our health care system," said Brakeman, who favors a single-payer system, with the government or a separate agency providing coverage for everyone. The role of existing health insurers would be dramatically downsized.
Brakeman, citing the Aetna executives' compensation, said, "Nobody's worth that much, especially when we're looking at a crisis in our state."
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