Antitrust Lawyer Blog Commentary on Current Developments

Articles Tagged with wellpoint

On November 28, 2012, the DOJ announced that Amerigroup’s sale of its subsidiary, Amerigroup Virginia Inc., to Inova Health System Foundation (“Inova”) addressed the agency’s concerns with WellPoint’s proposed $4.9 billion acquisition of Amerigroup.

The DOJ said that the merger, as originally proposed, would have lessened competition substantially in the provision of Medicaid managed care plans in Northern Virginia.  The deal was announced in July and the DOJ issued a Second Request to investigate the merger in August.  The DOJ noted that it worked closely with the Virginia state Attorney General on its review of the acquisition.  WellPoint, a licensee of the BCBSA serving more than 65 million members with 2011 revenues of $60.7 billion, and Amerigroup, serving more than 2 million members with 2011 revenue of more than $6 billion, were the only two providers of Medicaid managed care plans in Northern Virginia.

The Virginia Medicaid managed care program provides enrollees with access to preventive and coordinated care through managed care organizations, including WellPoint and Amerigroup.  Congress recognized the importance of choice to Medicaid beneficiaries by generally requiring that states give beneficiaries a choice of at least two Medicaid managed care entities if the state requires beneficiaries to enroll in managed care plans.

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