Article: Giant HMOs go separate ways after failed merger. (Health Systems International Inc.; Wellpoint Health Networks Inc.)(Special Report: Health Care)

Employees more confident jobs will be retained

The potential merger between Health Systems International Inc. and WellPoint Health Networks Inc. managed to be both the biggest story and non-story of 1995.

Announced in early spring, the deal would have created the largest publicly traded health plan in California and one of the largest in the country.

However, it unraveled late in the year as each firm accused the other of various misdeeds.

"It was a story of two people who couldn't get their egos in the same room," said one veteran industry observer, referring to Blue Cross/WellPoint's Chairman and CEO Leonard D. Schaeffer and Health Systems' ...

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