In May, the Florida Campaign for Consumer Choice launched a statewide petition drive to encourage Bondi to investigate the mergers of Aetna and Humana, and Anthem and Cigna.
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The statement said a combined company is in the best interest of consumers, particularly seniors seeking affordable, high-quality Medicare Advantage plans.
“For most Americans, health insurance is not a luxury, but a necessity”, said Attorney General Loretta Lych, announcing the antitrust lawsuits.
The Anthem-Cigna merger, in particular, would be the largest health insurance merger in US history and impact 1.5 million CT residents.
“Our actions seek to preserve competition that keeps premiums down”, she added.
The lawsuit was filed against Anthem Inc’s proposed purchase of Cigna Corp and Aetna Inc’s planned acquisition of Humana Inc.
Regulators said in court documents that the deals would reshape the health insurance industry and eliminate two competitors “at a time when the industry is experimenting with new ways to lower (health care) costs”. “The department will continue to work with our state colleagues to protect competition and innovation in this vitally important industry”.
The suit against Anthem and Cigna alleges that their merger would substantially reduce competition for millions of consumers who receive commercial health insurance coverage from national employers throughout the United States. The companies said Thursday they plan to fight the federal suit. It also wants to halt the merger of two other “Big Five” health insurance providers, Aetna Inc.
The Justice Department was joined in the long-anticipated suit with attorneys general in 11 states, including major players like California.
A report previous year from the Kaiser Family Foundation calculated Medicare Advantage market shares for UnitedHealthcare (20 percent), Humana (19 percent) and Aetna (7 percent), and concluded the merged company would overtake UnitedHealthcare as the market’s biggest player.
The Department of Justice (DoJ) filed the lawsuits in a Washington, DC federal court, and requested the deals to be blocked. “CSMS has expressed major concerns with giant health insurers becoming goliaths with exclusive or near-exclusive power to dictate price and care delivery to the detriment of patient medical care”.
The mega-mergers would significantly reduce the number of health insurers across the country.
Cigna said it was “evaluating its options” and does not believe the deal could close until 2017 at the earliest, “if at all”.
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The insurers argue that the mergers are needed to help provide scale to negotiate better deals with hospitals and doctors. Lynch said if both deals were allowed to move forward, competition would be drastically reduced, meaning premium prices could skyrocket and benefits could be cut.
