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.

Big health insurance mergers gain millions in legal and banking facilities

While regulators and consumers debate the merits of the huge pending health insurance mergers, attorneys and financiers are observing their incomes grow

Aetna Inc., Anthem Inc., Cigna Corp. and Humana Inc. cumulatively have spent more than $400 million on armies of lawyers, investment bankers and other advisers who have crafted and advocated for their respective mega-mergers. That money covers after-tax expenditures from the time the deals were declared previous summer through the end of this year's first quarter on March 31.

It is been almost a year since the greatest players in the health insurance industry publicly revealed their pursuits. Previous July, Aetna agreed to buy Humana into a $37 billion deal to bolster its Medicare Advantage business. Weeks later, Anthem and Cigna finalized their own transaction, which is presently valued at $53 billion and would predominantly consolidate employer health-plan choices.

If Aetna and Anthem obtain approvals from the U.S. Department of Justice and state regulators, they will, along with UnitedHealth Group Inc., make a strong triumvirate of for-profit insurers.