From Business Insider - 08/17/16
"As we add new territories, given the additional startup costs of each new territory, we will incur additional losses," the letter said. "Our ability to withstand these losses is dependent on our achieving anticipated synergies in the Humana acquisition."
Additionally, the letter seemed to foretell the move on Monday. Here's the key passage(emphasis added):
"Our analysis to date makes clear that if the deal were challenged and/or blocked we would need to take immediate actions to mitigate public exchange and ACA small group losses.Specifically, if the DOJ sues to enjoin the transaction, we will immediately take action to reduce our 2017 exchange footprint.
"We currently plan, as part of our strategy following the acquisition, to expand from 15 states in 2016 to 20 states in 2017. However, if we are in the midst of litigation over the Humana transaction, given the risks described above, we will not be able to expand to the five additional states.
"In addition, we would also withdraw from at least five additional states where generating a market return would take too long for us to justify, given the costs associated with a potential breakup of the transaction. In other words, instead of expanding to 20 states next year, we would reduce our presence to no more than 10 states."
In other words, the cost of fighting the DOJ would make Aetna unable to sustain the losses incurred from the public exchanges.
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