Walmart soon to buy healthcare giant Humana, CVS buys Aetna, Amazon making similar moves

submitted by magnora7 from finance.yahoo.com

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[–]i_cansmellthat 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

One would think these actions would violate anti trust law.

Also, insurance already has too heavy a hand in dictating patient care. These are insurance companies being gobbled up by corporate giants, most average people and their physicians are going to have little say or choice in treatment plans. This stinks, unless you are a corporate executive or a paid off politician.

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

violate anti trust law.

Is that still enforced or cared about? Seems like the breakup of Ma Bell was the last true anti-trust enforcement, and since then all the major companies have worked their hardest to mothball that process.

[–]i_cansmellthat 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's not enforced.

Talking with a friend who is in law school yesterday, and he explained it like this (and I will butcher it): There are vertical anti trusts and horizontal ones. The horizontal represents companies buying out like companies, such as Lowes buying, say, Ace Hardware. Vertical anti trust is when a large company buys into a different concept for that company, like Lowes buying all the Hallmark card stores. Horizontal anti trust is sometimes (rarely these days) pursued legally, but vertical never is, at least in the last 20-30 years.

Wasn't the best topic to bring up over Easter dinner! I think we all still like each other....