from the all-the-more-to-get-folk-in-the-store dept.
Walmart could acquire the health insurer Humana, in a deal reminiscent of CVS's acquisition of Aetna:
Walmart Inc. is in preliminary talks to buy insurer Humana Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, a deal that would mark a dramatic shift for the retail behemoth and the latest in a recent flurry of big deals in health-care services.
It isn't clear what terms the companies may be discussing, and there is no guarantee they will strike a deal. If they do, the deal would be big: Humana currently has a market value of about $37 billion. It also would be Walmart's largest deal by far, eclipsing its 1999 acquisition of the U.K.'s Asda Group PLC for $10.8 billion. Walmart, which in addition to being the world's biggest retailer is also a major drugstore operator, has a market value of about $260 billion.
[...] Walmart has a vast pharmacy business, with locations in most of its roughly 4,700 U.S. stores and in many of it Sam's Club warehouse locations. Humana is a Medicare-focused insurer that could deepen Walmart's relationship with a key demographic—seniors—at a time when the retailer is being threatened by Amazon on several fronts.
Also at CNN.
Related: $54 Billion Anthem-Cigna Health Insurer Merger Rejected by U.S. Judge
CVS Attempting $66 Billion Acquisition of Health Insurer Aetna
Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase to Offer Their Own Health Care to U.S. Employees
Is Amazon Planning a Disruptive AWS-Like Move Into Health Care?
Amazon Prime... For Medicaid Recipients
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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.
CVS, one of the largest pharmacies in the U.S., has made an offer to acquire the health insurer Aetna Inc.:
U.S. pharmacy operator CVS Health Corp has made an offer to acquire No. 3 U.S. health insurer Aetna Inc for more than $200 per share, or over $66 billion, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. A deal would merge one of the nation's largest pharmacy benefits managers and pharmacy operators with one of its oldest health insurers, whose far-reaching business ranges from employer healthcare to government plans nationwide.
[...] A tie-up with Aetna could give CVS more leverage in its price negotiations with drug makers. But it would also subject it to more antitrust scrutiny. The deal could also help counter pressure on CVS's stock following speculation that Amazon.com Inc is preparing to enter the drug prescription market, using its vast e-commerce platform to take market share from traditional pharmacies.
[...] The sources did not specify how much of CVS' bid is cash versus stock, but given CVS's and Aetna's market capitalizations of $77 billion and $54 billion, respectively, a substantial stock component is likely in any deal.
- A CVS-Aetna Deal Is Logical But Also a Stretch
- Wall Street Sees a CVS, Aetna Deal as a Revolutionary Defense
Also at NYT.
Related: Judge Finds That Aetna Misled the Public About its Reasons for Quitting Obamacare
$54 Billion Anthem-Cigna Health Insurer Merger Rejected by U.S. Judge
Health Insurer Aetna Accidentally Exposes Customers' HIV Statuses With Transparent Envelope Windows
Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Team Up to Disrupt Health Care
Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase announced on Tuesday that they would form an independent health care company to serve their employees in the United States. The three companies provided few details about the new entity, other than saying it would initially focus on technology to provide simplified, high-quality health care for their employees and their families, and at a reasonable cost. They said the initiative, which is in the early planning stages, would be a long-term effort "free from profit-making incentives and constraints."
The partnership brings together three of the country's most influential companies to try to improve a system that other companies have tried and failed to change: Amazon, the largest online retailer in the world; Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company led by the billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett; and JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States by assets.
Various health insurance and pharmacy companies were hit by the news:
The move sent shares of health-care stocks falling in early trading. Express Scripts Holding Co. and CVS Health Corp., which manage pharmacy benefits, slumped 6.7 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively. Health insurers Cigna Corp. and Anthem Inc. also dropped. The health-care industry has been nervously eyeing the prospect of competition from Amazon for months. While the new company created by Amazon, Berkshire and JPMorgan would be for their U.S. staff only, this is the first big move by Amazon into the industry. The new collaboration could pressure profits for middlemen in the U.S. health-care supply chain.
Related: $54 Billion Anthem-Cigna Health Insurer Merger Rejected by U.S. Judge
CVS Attempting $66 Billion Acquistion of Health Insurer Aetna
Amazon Health-Care Move May Be Next 'Home Run' Like Cloud Services
Amazon.com Inc.'s foray into health care won't be the first time it has disrupted an entire industry by starting with an effort inside the company.
Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos is teaming up with fellow billionaires Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon to revamp health care for the 2.4 million workers and dependents of the companies they run. The move fostered widespread speculation the trio will eventually make their approach to medical care available to companies far and wide.
Bezos has a long, increasingly successful, record of starting new businesses on a small scale, often for the benefit of his company, then spreading them to the masses -- creating a world of pain for incumbents. Consider the ways Amazon is changing industries as varied as product fulfillment, cloud computing and even the sale of cereals, fruits and vegetables.
This is just a cheap excuse to follow up on the machinations of the world's richest human:
Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase to Offer Their Own Health Care to U.S. Employees
Amazon launches a low-cost version of Prime for Medicaid recipients
Amazon announced this morning it will offer a low-cost version of its Prime membership program to qualifying recipients of Medicaid. The program will bring the cost of Prime down from the usual $10.99 per month to about half that, at $5.99 per month, while still offering the full range of Prime perks, including free, two-day shipping on millions of products, Prime Video, Prime Music, Prime Photos, Prime Reading, Prime Now, Audible Channels, and more.
The new program is an expansion on Amazon's discounted Prime service for customers on government assistance, launched in June 2017. For the same price of $5.99 per month, Amazon offers Prime memberships to any U.S. customer with a valid EBT card – the card that's used to disburse funds for assistance programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Women, Infants, and Children Nutrition Program (WIC).
It could be a way to get users with certain health care requirements on board before Amazon launches its own health insurance company.
Also at USA Today.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @02:15PM
You'll never guess what doctors found lodged up his ass!
How many used condoms did she lose in her vag? The number will shock you!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @03:09PM (23 children)
If the incompetent Republicans ever manage to repeal all of ObamaCare and then de-regulate the health industry to allow for any group of people to pool their resources for the purpose of risk management (as defined by that group), then we could really start to see some improvements in health care quality and coverage.
These profit-seeking corporations are setting themselves up for the race, but we're all waiting for Congress to build the race track.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @03:13PM (11 children)
Right now, there are too many obstacles on the race track to have a meaningful race; the obstacles were dumped there by Congress, and only Congress can clean up that mess.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 31 2018, @03:38PM (10 children)
Stop talking to yourself.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @03:59PM (8 children)
You want higher quality threads? Enhance this website in 3 ways:
Allow each user to edit a comment after posting; this would still work for an AC, by means of session cookies.
Reduce the draconian censorial nature of downmodding; it's ridiculous that one downmod can tank a legitimate comment.
Relax the throttling of AC comments, so that actual conversations can take place in a dynamic fashion.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday March 31 2018, @05:25PM (5 children)
There are good arguments for being able to edit a posted comment until someone else has replied to it. Or possibly for the first two minutes, but no replies allowed during that period.
The rest of your suggestions seem, at best dubious. There are already too many trolls and stupid comments.
But I would like for there to be a "stupid" downmod. Often something isn't a troll or flamebait, but is just uninformed. Or possibly some of those are trolls, but that's a judgment call, whereas stupid is nearly objective.
OTOH, if you disagree with the way people downmod, just browse at -1. That's what I do.
P.S.: Since many have requested the ability to edit a post after posting, and it hasn't been implemented, I would guess that it's harder than it appears. Perhaps there are lots of edge cases.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @05:41PM (1 child)
One man's "Stupid" is another man's "Insightful", and some of the historically "Stupidest" ideas ended up becoming recognized as some of the most "Insightful" in history.
So, fuck you.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Whoever on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:22PM
Yeah, a vanishingly small number of them. The rest of them were and remain stupid.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday March 31 2018, @09:55PM (2 children)
For how long after posting should you be able to edit?
If its a spelling error, or a forgotten word or link that's one thing.
But being able to come back three hours later and change the entire conversation seems disruptive. You can easily make others look stupid by inserting stuff after the fact that you originally left out or changing your position entirely.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday March 31 2018, @11:31PM (1 child)
I'd suggest two minutes. Five would generally be acceptable. One is probably too short.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01 2018, @01:32AM
I think five or if someone responds, whichever is first. However, my exact suggestion depends on what isolation level the DB uses.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday March 31 2018, @09:49PM
Sign up with a fake name for christ sake! Grow up and learn how to use the internet.
You can not have an actual conversation with a hundred voices shouting insults from a darkened theater. That's called heckling. It doesn't work.
Its disruptive to conversation. Its destructive to discussions,
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 01 2018, @02:28PM
Not interested over here. Aside from the problem that AC comments tend to be crap even by our low standards, no one can tell them apart. You can't have "dynamic conversation" when several ACs are involved and moving in and out of the conversation.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Whoever on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:26PM
Don't reply to the trolls, because their comments become visible even though they may be modded down to -1 because of your reply. The visibility may depend on your settings.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fishybell on Saturday March 31 2018, @05:55PM (10 children)
You mean like we had before Obamacare?
I personally pine for the days that I could be denied coverage because for treatment because I had a lapse in coverage 10 years ago. I really wish I could be discriminated against because of family history that I didn't know about and might or might not have any actual effect on my risk.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:11PM (9 children)
What we had before ObamaCare was far from a free market, due especially to governmental meddling that began during WWII in pursuit of wartime "economics".
Worst of all, insurance companies were transformed from managers of risk into inscrutable, black-box payment networks for even the minutest transaction in the health-care industry.
So, we need to get back to insurance as risk management, and we need to get back to a consumer–producer dynamic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:33PM
.. not a true Scotsman...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:35PM (3 children)
Anyone who thinks that medical insurance can ever be like other insurance such as auto or house is an idiot.
Imagine this situation: you are out walking and you suffer a stroke or heart attack.
You can't negotiate who provides the ambulance or where the ambulance takes you because:
1. The most important thing for you is to get to an ER as soon as possible.
2. You may not be able to communicate.
On a lesser note: there is an advantage in doctors seeing all your medical history, which cuts strongly against shopping around for medical services for each type of illness or treatment required.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday March 31 2018, @10:11PM
You say that is if that is a novelty or something. Where do you get your medical care where this is not already the case?
The other reason medical insurance can't be like other insurance is this insistence that everyone gets to control what they put in their own body, drugs, dicks, drinks and daily double cheese burgers, and EVERYONE else gets to STFU and pay for their medical care, because you can't charge one person for their actual risk factors because that would be discriminatory.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @10:15PM
The Free Market is an iterative process; it's enough to be able to review history.
Secondly, part of employing a risk manager (like insurance) is to pay them to do that kind of analysis for you, and thereby come up with solutions in advance of need.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01 2018, @12:04AM
House and auto insurance is also a disaster, with companies constantly ripping people off and trying to get out of paying. They should be regulated into oblivion, at the very least.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday March 31 2018, @10:02PM (3 children)
Never the less, the insurance system we had previously only needed a few fixes to make it quite good compared to what we have under obamacare today.
Removing pre-existing condition denials and adding cross state competition would have been more than enough as a first go.
What you see is the market recognizing that Obamacare is going to collapse of its own weight.
They are getting into position of OWNING health care providers and insurers, because that is going to be where its at after this mess crashes.
You think you can't afford your tax bill now, wait for single payer. Because that's the only way Obamacare survives.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01 2018, @12:21AM (2 children)
Because the "market" is an utter disaster when it comes to health care. One way to make money is to deny care as often as possible, which we what we constantly see. This is not acceptable for healthcare. Obamacare did not fix this; it only made it slightly better.
What we actually need is single payer, which could be implemented as medicare-for-all. Despite all the nonsensical propaganda about waiting times, other first world countries with single payer systems do not have 10,000+ people dying every year from preventable illnesses because they can't afford medical care, and nor do they have medical bankruptcies. In those countries, the waiting times are almost always based on need, whereas in the US, it is based on how much money you have. And, sure, you could find a few examples of things going wrong in single payer systems, but I could point to tens of thousands of examples of things going wrong with our system.
The "few fixes" you speak of wouldn't even begin to address the issues with our system, because the market is simply a bad fit for healthcare.
Wrong. Without price-gouging for-profit insurance companies, we would be paying less [washingtonpost.com] for medical care, not more. Also, people with insurance wouldn't have to pay massive amounts of money for insurance every month, so even if some people's taxes did increase, they would ultimately be better off because they wouldn't be paying price-gouging insurance companies. There is no good evidence showing that single payer is more expensive, and plenty of good evidence that it would be less expensive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01 2018, @12:37AM
It's not much of a market when your insurance is pretty much attached to your place of employment.
How did such a weird marriage come about? Government meddling.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 01 2018, @02:21PM
OTOH, when they're dying because they're in those waiting lines, they are dying because they can't afford health care that doesn't have those waiting lines. Bet it's more than 10,000+ per year.
Ultimately, no one and no country can afford the health care that would be required to keep people alive indefinitely.