U. S. District Judge John Bates wrote in the decision last month
that neither new competition nor plans to shed some of the combined company’s businesses would be enough to ease antitrust concerns.
INDIANAPOLIS — Major health insurers Aetna and Humana called off their $34 billion combination
after a federal judge, citing concerns about prices and benefits, rejected the deal.
The deal would have given Aetna the opportunity to significantly expand its presence in Medicare Advantage coverage,
which involves privately run versions of the federal Medicare program for people who are over 65 or disabled.
Federal regulation would likely be "insufficient to prevent the merged firm from raising prices or reducing benefits," Bates ruled.
But Aetna’s attempt to gobble up the nation’s fifth largest health insurer brought in the Department
of Justice, which sued last summer to block that deal and the Anthem-Cigna combination.
Regulators worried, in particular, about how the Aetna-Humana deal would affect consumer choices
and competition in the fast-growing market for Medicare Advantage plans.