Aetna Threatened Obamacare Pullout Over Blocked Humana Merger

Aetna’s recent decision to scale back its participation in the Affordable Care Act was directly related to a Department of Justice decision to block the insurance company’s proposed merger with Humana, according to a letter obtained Wednesday by The Huffington Post. The company initially framed its Obamacare exit as being due to the health-care law’s steep costs for insurers. “It is very likely that we would need to leave the public-exchange business entirely and plan for additional business efficiencies should our deal ultimately be blocked,” Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini wrote in the letter to the Department of Justice, dated July 5. “[I]f the deal were challenged and/or blocked we would need to take immediate actions to mitigate public exchange and ACA small group losses.”