In a letter sent to the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ), the AMA urged the DOJ to oppose the CVS-Aetna merger. The letter expressed “concern that market concentration is a leading cause of high costs in health care” and that a merger between CVS and Aetna would “likely substantially lessen competition in many health care markets, to the detriment of patients.”
The merger was first proposed in December 2017. In February 2018, the AMA submitted a statement to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law in anticipation of a hearing entitled “Competition in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain: The Proposed Merger of CVS Health and Aetna.”
It was here that AMA laid out the argument that this merger had the potential to decrease competition in Medicare Part D, pharmacy benefit manager services, local health insurance, and many local retail pharmacy markets, and therefore should be closely scrutinized. (read more)