Antitrust expert: Justice Department should block insurance mega deals

The recently announced mega deals in the insurance industry will lead to further consolidation of an already highly concentrated health insurance market and will not benefit consumers, says David Balto, former policy director for the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition. In a column published yesterday in Law360, antitrust attorney Balto and colleague James Kovacs say the mergers between Aetna and Humana and Anthem and Cigna “will not serve to lower costs or improve care. Instead, they will increase health insurance concentration in already concentrated markets leading to higher premiums, decreased quality of health care services, and less innovation. These mergers should be blocked.” For more, see today’s AHASTAT blog post.