Aetna (Meritain Health) - 1792 Exchange

Rating Overview

Aetna (Meritain Health) is Medium Risk.

Aetna is Medium Risk. The company often yields to political activism in shaping corporate governance, potentially alienating consumers, dividing employees, and harming shareholders. The company elevates merit, excellence, and integrity ahead of race and identity-based policies. Aetna occasionally embraces corporate initiatives that redirect its central focus from business goals to partisan policies and divisive issues at times. This approach fails to safeguard free exercise, free speech, and free enterprise.

Rating Criteria

Corporate Weaponization Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Cancellations	Lower Risk
Discriminatory Philanthropy	Lower Risk
Employment Protection	Medium Risk

Corporate Weaponization ⓘ

Corporate Governance and Public Policy Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Advocacy Bias	Medium Risk
Funding	High Risk
Political Actions	High Risk

Corporate Governance and Public Policy ⓘ

Rating Criteria Detail

Criteria Risk Level Rationale

Corporate Weaponization

Criteria:

Has canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors due to their political views or religious beliefs OR corporately boycotts, divests, or sanctions regions, people groups, or industries.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

Aetna has not publicly canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors based on political views or religious beliefs (1).

Criteria:

Charitable giving (including employee matching programs) policies or practices discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or religious beliefs.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

Aetna does not discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or beliefs (1).

Criteria:

Employment policies fail to protect against viewpoint or other discrimination and/or are ideological in nature.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Whistleblowers allege that CVS, Aetna’s parent company, has mandatory “antiracism” training programs that feature core tenets of critical race theory (1)(2)(3). Aetna protects its employees against viewpoint discrimination (4).

Corporate Governance and Public Policy

Criteria:

Uses corporate reputation to support causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Aetna’s parent company, CVS, advocates for the Equality Act and transgender participation in girls’ sports (1)(2). Furthermore, CVS has committed to multiple acts of engagement for the LGBTQ community (3). The company signed an open letter opposing a Florida bill that would prevent teaching gender identity and sexual orientation in schools to kids in K-3rd grade (4). Aetna’s parent company, CVS Health, scored a 100 out of 100 on the 2023-2024 Corporate Equality Index (CEI) from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a political stakeholder group (5)(6).

Criteria:

Uses corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Aetna covers abortion-related travel expenses for employees (1). Its parent company, CVS Health, is a corporate sponsor of the HRC (2). Aetna was a Silver Tier corporate sponsor of the Trevor Project, an organization that advocates for controversial sex and gender ideology, including “gender transition” drugs and surgeries for minors, through legislation, litigation, advertising, and PR campaigns. The organization also hosts online chatrooms that allow adults to communicate with minors as young as 13 about sexually explicit topics. Adults in these chatrooms have encouraged minors to adopt transgender identities and withhold this information from their parents ((3))((4))((5))((6))((7)). Aetna is a founding corporate partner of the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (8). Aetna sponsored the Portsmouth Pride Fest in 2025 (9). Otherwise, there are no publicly known cases of the company using corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies (10).

Criteria:

Uses corporate political actions and/or financial contributions for ideological, non-business purposes.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

CVS, the parent company, is responsible for all of Aetna’s corporate PAC giving. CVS Health has donated to the Equality PAC but has not lobbied for ideological purposes (1)(2)(3).