Humana’s booming Medicare business makes it an attractive acquisition target for Aetna, which focuses more on employer-sponsored health plans that have less unit growth potential than Medicare or Medicaid plans. And Humana has considerable experience in the fee-for-value world, Aetna less so.
“The health insurance industry deal speculation primarily focusing on Aetna’s ambitions comes just as the government plans to shift a huge amount of Medicare dollars away from the traditional fee-for-service approach to medicine that is based on volume and to medicine based on value that is tied to outcomes, performance and quality of care provided. Humana administers a large book of Medicare business Aetna may be interested in and larger amounts of capital may be needed to managed it from either insurer,” Forbes said.
