STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Changes in the health insurance industry are at the top of NPR's business news.

The giant insurance company Aetna plans to get a little bigger. It's buying Coventry Health Care for more than $5.5 billion. Now, if you want to know why, consider the changing landscape in which Aetna does business. Medicaid is expanding under President Obama's health care law, Medicare is expanding as Americans grow older, and those government-run plans include many opportunities for private insurance companies.

Aetna says it wants to obtain more customers who are in the government sector. Last month, another big insurance company, Wellpoint, said it would buy a company called Amerigroup, which serves many people on Medicaid. And last fall, Cigna bought HealthSpring to boost its business with Americans on Medicare. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.