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Aetna trumped third-quarter earnings expectations and raised its 2017 forecast again, even as the health insurer's withdrawal from the Affordable Care Act's insurance marketplaces contributed to a revenue miss. The nation's third-largest insurer balanced a 5-percent drop in revenue with a bigger decrease in health care costs and improvements in its Medicare Advantage business. Overall net income jumped 39 percent, to $838 million. (Murphy, 10/31)

During a call with analysts to discuss earnings, Aetna executives declined to address a report in The Wall Street Journal that CVS Health Corp. was in talks to purchase the company for more than $66 billion. Chief Executive Mark T. Bertolini said the company won’t “comment on rumors or speculation.” He did, however, say that Aetna aims to announce its plans for the future of its pharmacy-benefit contract with CVS by the middle of next year, and that CVS’s agreement to service the new pharmacy-benefit manager being launched by Anthem Inc. is “not a problem for us.” The existing Aetna contract with CVS goes through 2022, but Aetna has the ability to opt out at the start of 2020. (Wilde Mathews and Prang, 10/31)