** Shares of U.S. health insurers fall after a group of lawmakers introduced a bill to break up pharmacy-benefit managers
** The Senate bill will force companies that own health insurers or pharmacy-benefit managers to divest their businesses' operating pharmacies within three years
** UnitedHealth's shares fall 5% to $537.24, its lowest since July
** CVS Health drops 4.9% and Cigna slips 5.2%.
** Peers Elevance , Humana and Centene fall between 2% and 3%
** Leerink analysts believe the new legislation would likely be "quite challenging to execute"
** "We do not think the new proposed legislation materially increases the risk of meaningful FTC (Federal Trade Commission)/Congressional action at this point" — Leerink
** Including session's moves, HUM down 39.3%, CNC down 25.5% and CVS down 33.7% YTD
(Reporting by Christy Santhosh)
((Christy.Santhosh@thomsonreuters.com))
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