Harvard University Professor, Joseph P. Newhouse, to Join Aetna Board.

Business Editors

HARTFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 28, 2001

Aetna (NYSE: AET) announced today that Joseph P. Newhouse, Ph.D., the John D. MacArthur Professor of Health Policy and Management at Harvard University, has been appointed to the company's Board of Directors, effective immediately. With the addition of Newhouse, 59, Aetna's board increases to 12 members.

"Aetna is extraordinarily fortunate to have Joe Newhouse as a member of our board," Aetna Chairman, President and CEO John W. Rowe, M.D., said. "Joe is among the most distinguished experts on health care financing in America today. He is not only a distinguished academic researcher, but also a highly influential policy-maker in his own right.

"Joe's deep understanding of the economics of health care delivery and financing has made him invaluable to numerous public and private-sector commissions and associations that have helped shape our nation's health care policy. We look forward to having the benefit of Joe's lifetime of experience as we continue to turn around Aetna's financial performance and help solve the many problems facing the nation's health care system," Dr. Rowe said.

Newhouse has been the John D. MacArthur Professor of Health Policy and Management at Harvard University since 1988, with appointments on the faculties of the Harvard Medical School, the Harvard School of Public Health, the Kennedy School of Government and the faculty of Arts and Sciences. He also is director of the university's Division of Health Policy Research and Education; director, Interfaculty Initiative on Health Policy; chair, Committee on Higher Degrees in Health Policy; and director, Sloan Center for the Managed Care Industry.

Before that, Newhouse served as deputy program manager for Health Sciences Research at Harvard from 1971-88; and as a staff economist, senior staff economist and head of the Economics Department at Harvard. In addition, he worked for the Rand Corporation from 1968-88. He received his B.A. degree in economics from Harvard in 1963 and his Ph.D. in economics in 1969.

Newhouse is a director of Abt Associates, Inc.; and is a member and former vice chairman of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). He is a past chair of the Prospective Payment Assessment Commission, a past commissioner of the Physician Payment Review Commission, a past president of the Association for Health Services Research, a past president of the International Health Economics Association, and a member of the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of Free for All: Lessons from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment.

Aetna is the nation's leading provider of health care and related group benefits, serving 18.1 million health care members, 13.9 million dental members and 11.7 million group insurance customers. For more information about Aetna, please visit the company's Web site at www.aetna.com.