The Trump administration and states should block the planned $69 billion merger between CVS Health and Aetna, says the nation’s largest doctor group.
The American Medical Association said it was concerned that the deal to combine CVS Health, a large pharmacy chain, with Aetna, a health insurance giant, would result in premium price hikes, reduced quality of health insurance, and higher out-of-pocket costs for patients when they pay for drugs.
If the merger is allowed to continue, the AMA said, it would have anti-competitive effects on Medicare Part D, the component of the Medicare program that pays for medicines.
The organization said it arrived at this conclusion after undertaking an “exhaustive analysis” and “intense evaluation” of the proposal using feedback from experts in health economics, health policy, and antitrust law.
AMA announced in a press release that it plans to publicly announce its position Tuesday through the group’s president, Dr. Barbara McAneny, during a hearing later in the day at the California Department of Insurance. She plans to say that federal and state health officials have “powerful reasons to block this harmful merger.”
“After very careful consideration over the past months, the AMA has come to the conclusion that this merger would likely substantially lessen competition in many health care markets, to the detriment of patients,” McAneny will say in prepared testimony. “The AMA is now convinced that the proposed CVS-Aetna merger should be blocked.”
Erin Britt, director of corporate communications for CVS Health, said that the vision for the merger was to create a system that was more simple and improved patients’ healthcare experience. The merger, she said, would not “further concentrate the healthcare sector” but “reconfigures it to bring together disparate parts of the healthcare system that today lead to inefficient, ineffective and more costly care.”
“We intend to continue to engage in a dialogue with the AMA as we create a community-based integrated model in which doctors, pharmacists, nurses and other health care professionals work together to provide a health care experience that is simpler, more convenient and less expensive,” she said.
Aetna did not immediately respond to a request to comment on the American Medical Association’s position.
The CVS-Aetna deal cleared the shareholder hurtle in March, but the merger still must be approved by federal regulators at the Justice Department before it can proceed. Another large merger valued at $37 billion for Aetna, with fellow insurance provider Humana, was blocked by a federal judge who cited antitrust issues.
- This story has been updated with a statement from CVS Health.
