UnitedHealth Group says the Justice Department’s antitrust challenge to its proposed $3.3 billion purchase of Amedisys is wrong on the merits and threatens to deprive consumers of benefits from sharper competition in the hospice and home care market.
The acquisition would boost efficiency while expanding services offered by its existing hospice and home care business, the two companies argue in a court filing submitted Friday in the U.S. District Court of Maryland.
The merger would lead to better care coordination, thereby reducing costly readmissions to the hospital, the companies say. They also contend that Amedisys workers would enjoy competitive health and retirement benefits at UnitedHealth Group.
In November, the Justice Department, along with attorneys general in Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey and New York, sued to block the merger, arguing the acquisition would harm patients and labor markets by significantly reducing competition. The companies are two of the largest home health and hospice providers in the U.S.
But in a court filing Friday, Eden Prairie-based UnitedHealth Group and Amedisys argued the government — in alleging the transaction would be presumptively unlawful in hundreds of local markets — was ignoring a proposed divestiture package. The Justice Department was using unrealistic market definitions, the companies said, while relying on “arbitrary, newly promulgated enforcement guidelines” that hadn’t even been proposed when the transaction was signed.
“The purported ‘evidence’ the government stitches together in its complaint is deeply misleading,” the companies said in the Friday filing, which was a response to the original November complaint. “Many of the government’s cherry-picked quotes relate to locations that will be addressed by a divestiture. Worse, the government mischaracterizes what it cites. ... Selectively excerpted documents do not constitute evidence, let alone facts.”
Judge James Bredar is expected to soon set a scheduling conference for the case, which marks the second time since 2022 the federal government has tried stopping UnitedHealth Group from completing a merger in its fast-growing Optum division for health care services.
Last week, the companies withdrew their motion to dismiss the antitrust complaint after the Justice Department filed with the court a list of 381 service areas where the government alleges presumptively anticompetitive impacts from the acquisition. None of the service areas are in Minnesota.
