The Office of the Insurance Commissioner received a request from WellPoint Inc. for a proposed acquisition of control of Amerigroup Washington Inc. and its parent company, Amerigroup, Inc.  

Amerigroup Washington is one of the several managed care plans that participates in state Medicaid managed care program called Healthy Options and the state’s Basic Health Plan through the Health Care Authority in selected Washington counties.

Amerigroup (AGP) and WellPoint (WLP) are for-profit corporations and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

If approved, WellPoint would become the controlling owner of Amerigroup Inc. and Amerigroup Washington Inc.

History of the process

We received the application for acquisition of control in August 2012. We completed our review of that application and sent the filing to our Hearings Unit in October 2012. An adjudicative hearing will be schudled soon.

An adjudicative hearing will be scheduled in the coming months when we have received all information for the application.

What we look at

In all proposed sales, the companies must file an application (Form A) that details:

• Financial information for both companies;
• Who will operate the health carrier at the highest levels;
• Their business plan for the health carrier; and
• How the market competition would be impacted.

Evaluation criteria

Under state law (www.apps.leg.wa.gov), the commissioner must approve the deal unless:

• It would substantially lessen competition or create a monopoly;
• The buyer’s plans are unfair and unreasonable to the policyholders of the health carrier;
• The buyer’s isn’t competent, honest, or financially sound enough to run a health carrier; or
• It is in some way “hazardous or prejudicial to the insurance-buying public.”