The merger would create the largest health insurer in the state and one of the largest in the nation. It will be up to Ario and his department to approve the merger.
Ario had been a top insurance regulator in Oregon. But before that, he had been a consumer advocate, affiliated with several state Public Interest Research Groups - the organization started by Ralph Nader.
Ario, his wife, Diana, and their three sons, 14, 12 and 3 (same wife, he hastens to point out), have relocated from Oregon to Hershey.
Question: How do you describe your job to your children?
Answer: I talk a lot to a lot of people about complicated insurance issues. They like to know, "Daddy, how often do you talk to the governor?" The thing they say a lot is, "Daddy likes to talk."
Q: Do they have any idea what insurance is?
A: Not really.
Q: When you were growing up, what did you want to be?
A: Like most kids, I wanted to be a professional baseball or basketball player. When I got out of high school I thought I would be a mathematician just because it was my strongest aptitude.
Then I got to college and I got very interested in political things. It was the end of the Vietnam War. It was George McGovern's campaign. And so I got involved in that.
I thought I was going to go to law school but I had a professor who said, "You ought to go to divinity school."
I said, "Why would I do that? I haven't been to church in five years." He said, "You ask the kind of questions people ask in divinity school."
I could be a minister, but I've never been ordained.
But I have a third career in me. It champions the notion that religion should be bringing people together, rather than driving people apart. Most people's image of religion in our culture is the far-right brand, which basically picks issues designed to polarize people.
Q: After divinity school, what was next?
A: Then I went to [Harvard] law school. At that time, I liked school. Easy life.
