THE American health insurance industry is rapidly consolidating. On July 24th, Anthem, a big provider of healthcare insurance has agreed to acquire Cigna, a rival, in a $54 billion deal. This news comes hot on the heels of a $37 billion deal between Aetna and Humana. UnitedHealth also recently completed its acquisition of Catamaran—which manages pharmacy benefits and prescriptions.
A significant factor in this wave of mergers, as well as those found throughout the entire healthcare industry, is the Affordable Care Act. This has expanded the number of people who are insured, and is attempting to wring out some of the many inefficiencies in America's very wasteful healthcare system, which costs $3 trillion every year.
Scale is increasingly important to the companies in the country's health insurance sector. As the number of insured has grown, the business margins are becoming tighter. Size will also be helpful in winning the best deals from hospitals, which have already raised their own...Continue reading
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