In what is surely to be a bright spot for most physician in Pennsylvania, Independence Blue Cross and Highmark announced today that they are withdrawing their request to merge. According to a report by the Philadelphia Inquirer this afternoon, the boards of two companies met today and decided they could not live with the condition that the Pennsylvania Insurance Department would have imposed on the merged entity. As reported earlier on this Blog, the controversial condition was that the merged entity could not use the Blue Cross trademark.