Dive Brief: >Sentara Healthcare and Cone Health are scrapping plans to merge after signing a letter of intent in August 2020. The deal was expected to close in the middle of this year pending regulatory approval, and would have created a 17-hospital, $11.5 billion system. Norfolk, Virginia-based Sentara is a nonprofit system with 12 hospitals in Virginia and North Carolina and its health plans serve over 800,000 members in Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio. Greensboro, North Carolina-based Cone Health is also a nonprofit with five hospitals in the state, and its two health plans serve 15,000 members. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein held a comment period in late April to gauge feedback on the merger, and received more than 40 responses, many touching on potential reduced competition in the market.