HARTFORD, CT – In May 2008, Aetna told its suppliers they must offer their employees healthcare coverage by 2011.

Aetna recently completed a survey of the 1,000 suppliers it is targeting, and only four percent of the 94 percent of suppliers who responded do not offer healthcare coverage for their employees.

Aetna has more than 6,000 suppliers, but eliminated companies based on a number of criteria, including not being based in the United States.

The initiative’s first milestone of 80 percent of its suppliers by 2010 has already been met, said James Helms, Aetna’s counsel. Still, he said, the company will ask every year if existing suppliers and new suppliers in the contract process offer coverage.

Aetna designed a business strategy plan to educate their suppliers on healthcare options, including opportunities outside of Aetna, and presented it in late July.

Helms said he wasn’t surprised that the noncompliant four percent are small employers, defined as having 100 or less employees. Neither was America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), which talked with small businesses across the country and found that they want to offer coverage but can’t afford it, said Robert Zirkelbach, senior manager at AHIP.

While it’s good that health plans are looking at ways to offer coverage, the larger issue is to provide comprehensive coverage for the 47 million uninsured, he said.

“We have to make sure we bring down the rate of healthcare costs to be able to afford coverage options,” said Zirkelbach.

Helms admitted that if a healthcare reform bill mandating coverage were passed, Aetna’s efforts would be “a wash.” Nonetheless, he said any legislation would not change Aetna’s focus on working towards healthcare coverage for all.

But mandating healthcare coverage could produce unintended consequences, said Devon Herrick, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

“Most people don’t understand that health benefits are merely a non-cash port of total compensation,” he said. “A likely scenario is that many low-skilled workers would never be hired because their labor costs would exceed their productivity."