Skip to main content

Featured Post

CALIFORNIA FIRE: 62,000 People Have Fled Blaze

Post a Comment

US pharmacy firm CVS to buy health insurer Aetna for $69bn

US pharmacy chain CVS has agreed to buy health insurer Aetna in what could be the largest acquisition this year.
The deal worth around $69bn (£51.1bn) requires approval by regulators and shareholders.
The proposed tie-up comes amid speculation that online shopping giant Amazon plans to move into the pharmaceutical market.
If it goes ahead, CVS said the acquisition has the potential to reshape America's healthcare industry.
"This combination brings together the expertise of two great companies to remake the consumer health care experience," said CVS chief executive Larry Merlo.
CVS has agreed to pay Aetna shareholders $207 per share, including $145 in cash and the rest in newly issued stock. The agreement also covers Aetna's debt, bringing the total acquisition to $77bn.
Rising costs
The pharmacy chain operator's planned acquisition of Aetna, America's third largest health insurer, comes amid rising medical costs for many Americans and their employers, including for prescription medicines.
Proposed tax cuts could also see a reduction in government-funded health programmes such as Medicaid.
CVS said the merger would put the firm in a better position to help customers as healthcare costs are growing at an "unsustainable rate".
"This transaction fills an unmet need in the current healthcare system and presents a unique opportunity to redefine access to high-quality care in lower cost, local settings", CVS said in a statement.
Under the merger plan, CVS could turn parts of its 10,000 stores into community health centres staffed with pharmacists, nurses and nutritionists.
Analysts say the deal comes at a time when pharmacies and healthcare providers are looking for ways to make it cheaper and easier for their clients to access their services.
But there is no guarantee the acquisition will go ahead. Mergers involving health insurance companies have recently collapsed after being blocked by federal judges over antitrust concerns, including Aetna's plan to buy Humana for $34bn in 2015.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

your comment is valuable

Popular posts from this blog

CALIFORNIA FIRE: 62,000 People Have Fled Blaze

  The evacuations have come amid a grueling heat wave, the coronavirus pandemic and air thick with smoke. The wildfires have burned through more than 350,000 acres. The wildfires that continued to rip across Northern California on Thursday have forced 62,000 people from their homes and threaten evacuations for 100,000 more. Firefighters have struggled to contain the blazes, and massive smoke clouds have harmed the air quality. A large group of fires burning in wine country west of Sacramento had grown to cover 131,000 acres, according to Cal Fire, the state’s fire authority. The agency said that, in all, nearly 350,000 acres have burned in Northern and Central California, with many fires sparked by lightning strikes in the high heat and then fanned by winds. Those conditions helped new fires sprout across the state on Wednesday and Thursday, and caused other fires to merge, complicating efforts to contain the combined blazes. Almost two dozen major fires were reported on Wednesday,...
Post a Comment
Read more

#Coronavirus & Flu - Washing hands for 20 seconds could keep you clear.

With flu season in full swing and the   coronavirus spreading rapidly throughout China, it's more important than ever that people take precautions to stay healthy. Officials in China   have confirmed more than 6,000 cases   of the respiratory illness and 132 deaths, and there have been five confirmed cases of the disease in the United States. As for the flu, there have been at least 15 million American cases this season  as of Jan. 18 , including 8,200 deaths — 54 of which were pediatric deaths. According to the   Centers for Disease Control , one of the best ways to protect yourself from these illnesses is to wash your hands often, and with the right technique. When your hands are clean, you can prevent germs from spreading from one person to another. To successfully wash hands, follow these five steps recommended by the CDC. First, wet your hands with clean, running water — warm or cold. After turning off the tap, apply soap to your hands and rub t...
Post a Comment
Read more

ALWAYS A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

Many have been so broken, to the extend they see everything about life as dark. Some have even lost the hope of anything good in life. So take life as "Nothing good comes out of it". Verse versa, So many good people have spent their entire life tagging some others as total darkness, but No, there is nothing of such as total darkness, there is always a light in every darkness, waiting to shine, but it needs more attention to do that. Remember, " more charging time is to power the brightness of the touch" the moment you stop charging, then gradually it goes brim and finally dies off. So have we failed to help some people let their light shine by casting them out, not giving a single chance to them. So I inspire you today to stand by those whom you ones tagged as darkness, you could do that from a far not necessarily physically close. The same goes to you who have tagged the world as dark and given up hope, there are is a light out there for you deep within the darkne...
1 comment
Read more