Aetna, Inc.

Aetna is one of the largest diversified health care benefits companies in the world with more than 14 million covered by its most popular policies. More than 400,000 doctors and over 4200 hospitals provide care for Aetna's policy holders. Net income of about $1.7 billion on total revenues of $25 billion isn't tremendously profitable, but the company's over 27,000 employees will be well taken care of.

The principal risk to private health insurers in the United States is that the federal government will step in to either directly limit the industry's profits or otherwise regulate the total cost of health care lower by taking it out on the middle men. While the enormous lobbying power of the insurance industry has already been working on this problem for years, a very real possibility these days is that the federal government will allow private insurers to continue to operate but will sponsor a chosen proxy that will invariably dominate the market.

Government certainly isn't synonymous with efficiency, but the entire health care industry is ripe for serious reform. In a very real sense, Aetna's current size is a powerful hedge against its interests being ignored when Congress finally addresses the issue after the next election.