When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act1 became law in 2010, one of its major goals was to encourage better quality and more cost-effective care across the spectrum of medical services. Since the law’s enactment, we have witnessed unprecedented consolidations among health care providers: hospitals acquiring or merging with other hospitals, the formation of vast health care systems, the development of large physician practices, mergers and acquisitions among managed care plans and health insurers, and other combinations. Ironically, standing in the way of some of these consolidations have been the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and some state attorneys general, who have expressed concern over the effects of these consolidations on competition in the health care marketplace.
Hospital mergers have become a particular target for antitrust scrutiny. A decision earlier this month from a federal district court in Pennsylvania highlighted this conflict between consolidation and competition, and dealt a blow to the FTC’s effort to stop the merger of two prominent health care systems in the commonwealth.
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