Cigna’s Humana Play Could Benefit From Sale of Medicare Unit (1)

Cigna Group’s potential tie-up with Humana Inc. would almost certainly face the kind of tough antitrust scrutiny that has derailed other health insurance mega-mergers.

In recent months, Cigna has been taking steps to get around that hurdle by shopping its relatively small Medicare Advantage business, a move that made little sense on its own before news broke of the Cigna-Humana talks.

That business has drawn interest from potential buyers including <-bsp-bb-link state=”{“bbHref”:”bbg://securities/20210Z%20US%20Equity”,”_id”:”0000018c-2043-d922-abee-78ebd85d0002″,”_type”:”0000016b-944a-dc2b-ab6b-d57ba1cc0000″}”>Health Care Service Corp.-bsp-bb-link>, according to people familiar with the matter who asked to not be identified because it isn’t public.

Representatives for HCSC and Cigna declined to …