Insurance breakups on Valentine’s Day

Published 8:12 am Wednesday, February 15, 2017

It was a rough day for the already-roiled U.S. health insurance market: One giant merger was abandoned, another is threatened by infighting, and a major insurer announced it will stop selling coverage on public exchanges in 11 states.

Both merger deals had already been rejected by federal regulators and judges, but the companies were considering appeals to those decisions. Now they both appear to be off.

Aetna said it was abandoning its planned $34 billion purchase of Medicare Advantage provider Humana early Tuesday. Then, later in the day, Cigna said it is suing Anthem to kill a $48 billion acquisition bid.

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The deals were conceived as a way to help the insurers increase their enrollment and cut down on expenses in part so they could improve their performances on the Affordable Care Act’s public insurance exchanges.