Aetna CEO Threatened Obamacare Pullout If Feds Opposed Humana Merger

And if the merger isn't blocked, what guarantee does Aetna make that they won't drop out of the exchanges anyway?

It does have the distinct smell of the broadband subsidies: "Give us money if you want us to roll out high-speed broadband."

"Thanks for the check. Oh, BTW, we decided high-speed broadband wasn't really working for us, so we nixed it."

Aetna deal goes through: "Shockingly, we're still losing money on exchanges, so we're not going to do that anymore. Thanks for letting that merger go through, though."

Anecdotally, any course of action depending on "synergies" being realized will not happen.