CVS Health will split into two separate companies

CVS Health is undoing the very strategy that made it one of the biggest companies in American health care. On Nov. 4, CVS said it will split into two separate public companies. One keeps the CVS Health name, holding insurer Aetna and pharmacy-benefit manager Caremark. The other holds roughly 9,000 retail pharmacies across the country. Investors weren't thrilled. Shares fell about 10% on the news.

CVS spent years buying its way into this shape. It folded in Aetna's insurance business and Caremark's drug-pricing operation alongside its drugstores. The idea was simple: owning the pharmacy, the insurer, and the drug-price middleman all at once would make more money. Instead, the combined company got harder to run. Regulators started scrutinizing how much power one company held across the drug supply chain. The split is CVS admitting that bet didn't pay off.

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Will splitting apart actually fix what the merger broke, or just create two smaller, less powerful companies? The breakup isn't expected to close until the first half of 2028. Nothing changes immediately for the roughly 9,000 pharmacies or Aetna's insurance customers. Whether drug prices or pharmacy service improve for ordinary customers is the real question. That won't be answered for years.