Andrew Gurman, president of the American Medical Association (AMA), recently released a statement demonstrating the AMA’s support for the California insurance commissioner, who seeks to protect California from the large mergers of Anthem-Cigna and Aetna-Humana.
"The American Medical Association applauds California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones for taking a strong stand to prevent a near total collapse of competition in the state's health insurance market,” Gurman said. “He has taken the right approach to protect California by opposing the Anthem-Cigna and Aetna-Humana mergers.”
Experts believe that the mergers would result in poor quality and high pricing.
"The AMA agrees with Commissioner Jones that the mergers would very likely raise premiums above competitive levels and reduce the quality of health care,” Gurman said. “He was also right in finding that any efficiency savings achieved in the mergers would not likely be passed along to patients. His finding is supported by economic studies suggesting that health insurance companies use monopoly power gained from mergers to charge higher prices for health insurance.”
If the mergers are carried through, experts believe the health care industry and system in California would be changed forever.
“The AMA commends the commissioner for acknowledging the evidence physicians and others presented demonstrating that the proposed mergers would likely enhance market power or raise significant competitive concerns in most of California metropolitan areas,” Gurman said. “Last March, the AMA testified before the Commissioner and warned that granting anticompetitive market power to any health insurance company would have long-term consequences for California's health care delivery system that would threaten health care access, quality and affordability."
