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Two recent health insurance mergers have been blocked by judges:
A federal judge on Wednesday ruled against U.S. health insurer Anthem Inc's proposed $54 billion merger with smaller rival Cigna Corp, derailing an unprecedented effort to consolidate the country's health insurance industry.
The U.S. Justice Department sued in July to stop Anthem's purchase of Cigna, a deal that would have created the largest U.S. health insurer by membership, and Aetna Inc's planned $33 billion acquisition of Humana.
On Wednesday, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued the ruling against Anthem's deal, saying that the merger would have worsened an already highly concentrated market and was likely to raise prices.
Last month, a different U.S. judge ruled against Aetna's proposed deal for Humana.
Government antitrust officials argued that both deals would lead to less competition and higher prices for Americans. The acquisitions would have reduced the number of large national U.S. insurers from five to three.
Also at Bloomberg, The Hill, and WSJ.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday February 10 2017, @02:17PM
1. Mandate that everybody has to buy health insurance.
2. Buy up all competitors in many states, so that everybody has no option but to buy it from you at whatever price you care to charge.
3. PROFIT!!!
There's no "????" step here for a reason.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 10 2017, @03:13PM
I think the ???? maybe should've been to make sure any lawsuits are handled in texas.