Published March 4, 2011
Well, that was fast. Harvard Pilgrim Health Plan and Tufts Health Plan say they are no longer planning to merge. The Boston Globe reports:
The two companies, which have been conducting merger talks for a month, “have now determined that we are stronger as individual competitors than one company,” Eric Schultz, president of Harvard Pilgrim, said in a joint statement from the two insurers.
The insurers, which combined would have served about 2 million customers, were thought to want to merge to better compete with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state’s largest health insurer with about 3 million members.
The news of merger talks broke Jan. 25. Harvard and Tufts are the state’s second and third largest health care plans, respectively.
Via CommonHealth, which has full text of the press releases.