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posted by martyb on Friday February 10 2017, @08:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the too-big-to-merge dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Friday February 10 2017, @05:15PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 10 2017, @05:15PM (#465533) Journal

    Man, New York is starting to sound worth the 250% cost of living.

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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday February 10 2017, @05:54PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Friday February 10 2017, @05:54PM (#465544)

    I heard you can get great housing discounts in an area with an appealing name: Love Canal.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 10 2017, @08:02PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 10 2017, @08:02PM (#465574)

      Too late, Love Canal is all fenced in now. There are other superfund sites around Western New York (Buffalo, Niagara) still available...