Ex-Aetna chief criticizes insurance mandate Mon Jun 18, 2012 9:40am EDT (Reuters) - The recently retired head of health insurer Aetna Inc criticized the component at the heart of the U.S. healthcare overhaul law, known as the individual mandate, and predicted it would not be upheld. The Supreme Court is expected to rule before the end of the month on the law championed by President Barack Obama, which is designed to expand coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans. At the center of the case is the mandate, which requires people buy insurance or pay a penalty. In an opinion article published in The Wall Street Journal entitled "Why I No Longer Support the Health Insurance Mandate," Aetna's former chairman and chief executive officer, Ron Williams, said he now believes "the legislation raises serious constitutional concerns." "Most seriously, Congress insisted on describing personal inactivity - in this case, the failure to purchase insurance - as interstate commerce within its regulatory reach," Williams writes in the piece. Americans were alarmed, rightly, that this could empower future legislatures to mandate that citizens engage in activities none of us would think reasonable today. He also said the process that led to the law "was driven by partisan politics," resulting in "structural flaws." "For example, the mandate should have been framed as a traditional tax - a move that could have bolstered the Act's constitutionality," Williams said. Williams said he concluded that the mandate "will not be upheld." The former Aetna chief said his initial support for the mandate was as a companion to requirements in the law that insurers cover everyone regardless of health status. Insurers have said that the mandate is critical if they are to provide coverage regardless of health status, otherwise people will buy insurance only when they get sick, driving up costs and premiums. Williams steered Aetna as CEO for about five years, including through a tumultuous time for the industry when Congress was debating the overhaul law, which was passed in 2010. Williams, who offered frequent public commentary during the health reform debate, retired as chairman of Aetna in April 2011, ceding the post to CEO Mark Bertolini. Williams was one of roughly a dozen CEOs who met with Obama just after his inauguration in January 2009 to discuss the U.S. economy. Reporting By Lewis Krauskopf; Editing by Andrea Ricci