Aetna, Humana still confront antitrust issues

Although Aetna Inc. agreed to purchase Humana Inc. for $37 billion last summer, both companies independently moved forward with policies to relocate their Jacksonville offices away from Downtown to suburban offices on the Southside.

It is probably a good thing the companies did not wait on completion of the merger to make those decisions because in accordance to a couple of reports last week, there are still antitrust concerns that could derail the deal.

Bloomberg News reported that, based on the track record of the U.S. Justice Department under the Obama administration, the Aetna-Humana deal may have a tough time getting federal approval.

Aetna’s proposed acquisition of Humana coincides with another health insurer deal in which Anthem Inc. agreed to purchase Cigna Corp. That would reduce the number of major national health insurance companies to three: Aetna, Anthem and UnitedHealth Group Inc.

Aetna has about 800 workers but said the Southside site was chosen “with potential employment growth in mind.”

Before the merger was declared in July 2015, Humana had already made policie to move 100 employees out of Downtown Jacksonville to two Southside locations, Prominence Plaza in Baymeadows and Merchants Walk in Mandarin. The merger agreement did not stop that process.

Aetna has said it hopes to complete the acquisition in the second half of this year.