U. S. District Judge John Bates wrote in the decision last month<br />that neither new competition nor plans to shed some of the combined company’s businesses would be enough to ease antitrust concerns.<br />INDIANAPOLIS — Major health insurers Aetna and Humana called off their $34 billion combination<br />after a federal judge, citing concerns about prices and benefits, rejected the deal.<br />The deal would have given Aetna the opportunity to significantly expand its presence in Medicare Advantage coverage,<br />which involves privately run versions of the federal Medicare program for people who are over 65 or disabled.<br />Federal regulation would likely be "insufficient to prevent the merged firm from raising prices or reducing benefits," Bates ruled.<br />But Aetna’s attempt to gobble up the nation’s fifth largest health insurer brought in the Department<br />of Justice, which sued last summer to block that deal and the Anthem-Cigna combination.<br />Regulators worried, in particular, about how the Aetna-Humana deal would affect consumer choices<br />and competition in the fast-growing market for Medicare Advantage plans.
