Giant merger moves in the country

Magazine Issue:

Low-cost is dead, long live ultra low-cost [3]

Magazine date:

Jul 2015

American health insurers are facing new uncertainties. Since the launch of the reform of health insurance by President Obama, they have been under pressure with regard to their costs.

At the same time, they see little growth prospects for corporate contracts while they are required to acquire a larger size to better negotiate rates with hospitals. These constraints are pushing two market leaders to envisage possible business with competitors.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the market’s first health insurer, UnitedHealth, (130.5 billion USD in revenues) is after Aetna, the third insurer endowed with 58 billion USD in premiums. Aetna, on its part, is seeking to take over Humana (48.5 billion USD in income).

The country’s second health insurer, Anthem (73.9 billion USD in turnover) could have already made two takeover bids to its competitor Cigna, the last of which would amount to 45 billion USD.