Bulletin: August 20, 2012
Aetna to Buy Coventry Health
Aetna announced today that it will buy fellow insurance company Coventry Health Care for $5.7 billion in order to bolster its share of government-funded healthcare business—a sector that is fast expanding due to President Obama’s healthcare reform measures.
With this deal, Aetna will obtain a stronger stake in government healthcare programs by increasing its enrollment in Medicare and Medicaid, the latter of which is expected to cover around 16 million more Americans, who are currently uninsured, beginning in January 2014.
Aetna is not the only insurer preparing for the implementation of healthcare reform. In July, WellPoint Inc. announced plans to buy Amerigroup, and last October, Cigna said it would purchase HealthSpring Inc. Consolidation of health insurers is expected to continue as implementation of healthcare reform gets closer.