Will the CVS-Aetna merger lower prices?

CVS hopes to use its tie-up with Aetna to become a medical hub

A CVS shopping basket.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Andrew Kelly)

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A megamerger unveiled this week "could shake up the health-care industry," said Carolyn Johnson at The Washington Post. Drugstore titan CVS is buying Aetna, the nation's third-largest health insurer, for roughly $69 billion. If approved by regulators, the "blockbuster acquisition" would create "a giant consumer health-care company with a familiar presence in thousands of communities." CVS hopes to use its tie-up with Aetna to become a medical hub, with its 9,700 retail stores and 1,100 walk-in clinics providing primary care and basic procedures, and the massive amounts of data from Aetna's 22 million members leveraged to "manage all aspects of a patient's health." The impetus for this deal "largely comes down to Amazon," said Chris Morris at Fortune​. Amazon recently won approval from 12 states to become a wholesale prescription drug distributor — a development that could upend the pharmacy business in the same way Amazon has disrupted retail, books, and cloud computing. Combining with Aetna now would allow CVS to "remain competitive" if the e-commerce giant enters the market.

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