"CVS Health" Is Swallowing The Healthcare Industry
A series of acquisitions and mergers, with millions of dollars spent lobbying Congress and donating to electoral campaigns, have culminated in rendering CVS Health a massively "too-big-to-fail" corporation, with its grip on medical retail, medical clinics, and now, a giant swath of the health insurance market. The power over the markets being permitted CVS Health is disconcerting, and warrants one attention, whether you are a democratic socialist that advocates against a for-profit health industry, or a right-wing libertarian that advocates "free-trade" capitalism.
"Humana", which, according to "HealthPayer Intelligence" is the nation's 4th-largest health insurance provider, and has been recently acquired by "Aetna" (which, according the same source is the nations 3rd-largest health insurance provider) for $37 Billion. This establishes the company as one of the largest forces in the healthcare insurance market, a force now controlled by "CVS Health Corporation", which, in turn, has acquired Aetna. This grants CVS Health an unprecedented economic and political power, as CVS Health is already a major actor in medical retail, and clinical care, albeit also granted the corporate authority to administer "TRICARE", the military's own health insurance program (Humana made Business Insider's list of 'top 9 defense contractors' in May 2016)", administered by the aforementioned company Humana, now under "CVS Health". They had already acquired Target's pharmaceutical section by the turn of 2016.
According to The Center For Responsive Politics, CVS Health has contributed almost $450,000 to political candidates in 2018 alone, well over 3 times the amount that "CVS Health PAC", the organizations own PAC, contributed to PACs that cycle. It should also be duelly noted that CVS Health PAC supported Rep. Joe Crowly (D-NY) over his progressive primary challenger, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Rep Crowley supports the Obama-era "Affordable Care Act", a giveaway to health industry corporations, while Ocasio-Cortez supports single-payer healthcare. CVS Health PAC is no partisan hack PAC however, as their fiscal/political "generosity" is, in fact, shockingly bipartisan. The Center For Responsive Politics reveals that 46% of campaign contributions went to Republicans, 54% to Democrats, and $34,000 to the "Trump Victory Fund", the highest expenditure on the page.