Health insurers Aetna Inc. and Humana Inc. will go to trial against the U.S. on Dec. 5 in defense of their planned $37 billion merger, pushing a judge's decision on the tie-up beyond their deadline for completing the deal by year-end.
The Justice Department's antitrust division sued last month to block the tie-up and the separate $48 billion merger of Anthem Inc. and Cigna Corp., contending that both combinations, which would reduce the number of national health insurers from five to three, would harm competition and undermine choice for consumers. The companies dispute assertions that their planned mergers would result in public harm.
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