Insurance mergers will reduce competition and choice

“The American Medical Association believes patients are better served in a health care system that promotes competition and choice. We have long cautioned about the negative consequences of large health insurers pursuing merger strategies to assume dominant positions in local markets. Recently proposed mergers threaten to increase health insurer concentration, reduce competition and decrease choice.

“The AMA’s own study shows that there has been a serious decline in competition among health insurers with nearly 3 out of 4 metropolitan areas rated as ‘highly concentrated’ according to federal guidelines used to assess market competition. In fact, 41 percent of metropolitan areas had a single health insurer with a commercial market share of 50 percent or more.