Companies plot next move as health insurance mergers killed

After 18 months of courtship and court cases, two massive deals that would have reshaped the U.S. health insurance industry have both been declared dead, blocked by judges who said they'd do unacceptable harm to competition in the industry.

Now, the companies are right back where they started. Anthem Inc.'s $48 billion deal to buy Cigna Corp. was blocked by a federal judge late Wednesday, weeks after another judge halted Aetna Inc.'s bid for Humana Inc. Aetna and Humana have said they may appeal.

The question now becomes what the companies will do with the large piles of cash they allocated for the acquisitions, and whether they'll try anew at fresh takeovers under a Trump administration, whose antitrust officials could be

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