Washington Post Columnist Cites AAI Objections to CVS-Aetna Merger

In an article criticizing the Justice Department’s failure to block the CVS-Aetna merger, Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein cited AAI’s December 2018 Tunney Act comments critical of the DOJ settlement allowing the deal to go forward. AAI’s letter to the DOJ making the case for blocking the deal appeared in March 2018.  Among other things, Pearlstein points to the conduct of CVS and other PBMs to raise drug prices through opaque rebates (which HHS now seeks to ban) as indicative of the competitive problems in the industry that the merger can only exacerbate.