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Highmark and Independence Blue Cross Withdraw Applications to Combine
Date:1/21/2009

PHILADELPHIA and PITTSBURGH, Jan. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Highmark Inc. and Independence Blue Cross (IBC) announced today that they have withdrawn their applications to the Pennsylvania Insurance Department (PID) to combine the two companies. They submitted the applications to the PID in April 2007.

In a joint statement, Kenneth R. Melani, M.D., president and chief executive officer of Highmark, and Joseph A. Frick, IBC's president and chief executive officer, said:

"During the last 21 months, our proposed combination has been closely examined in an unprecedented, wide-ranging, and open review with extensive public comments, outside expert analysis, and 10 public hearings. However, in recent days, it became clear to us that despite the well-documented advantages of the consolidation for our customers and our communities, the Insurance Department would not approve the transaction because of its belief that there would be an adverse impact on competition. We fundamentally disagree: we have shown that the combination would not lessen competition in our markets. In fact, the U.S. Department of Justice examined the competitive effects of the proposed combination on two separate occasions and cleared the transaction each time.

"To address its concern about the combination's impact on competition, the PID told us that we would have to relinquish the use of either the Blue Cross brand or the Blue Shield brand. Throughout the review process, we have stated repeatedly that we would not give up one of our brands. We have spent more than 70 years developing our brands' value in our markets and they are an integral part of our corporate identities and reputation.

"While we believe that the combination as originally proposed would have been of great benefit to all of our stakeholders, we concluded that giving up one of our brands would preclude the new company from delivering to our customers, communities, and
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SOURCE Independence Blue Cross
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