Less than two weeks after reports surfaced saying Cigna and Humana were considering combining into a giant health insurance company, those merger talks are now dead.
Investors hated the merger proposal, with some believing it would not have yielded enough profit quickly. Cigna’s stock sank by nearly 10% over the ensuing days. But a Cigna-Humana deal also raised a bunch of antitrust problems for a Biden administration that has shown an eagerness to challenge big transactions.
“I can’t imagine the prospect of a stringent antitrust review was helping this deal. It was probably throwing sand in the gears,” said Erin Fuse Brown, a law professor at Georgia State University who studies health care policy, regulation, and competition. “The Biden administration’s [Federal Trade Commission] and [Department of Justice] have really stepped up their oversight over the health care industry.”
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