About: Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor
Amy Y. Gu, J.D. is the Managing Editor for the Source on Healthcare Price & Competition. She holds a J.D. from Loyola Law School and a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining the Source, she practiced civil litigation in the San Francisco Bay Area, and later engaged in corporate compliance and discovery, representing various global pharmaceutical companies. Driven by an entrepreneurial mindset and her talents for marketing and web design, Amy also co-founded and successfully launched a startup in e-commerce. She is excited to bring to the Source a unique set of experience and perspective from both law and tech.Spotlight on State: Alaska
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor July 21, 2021
This is part of a series of summaries that highlight notable legislation and initiatives in health policy and reform of all 50 states. Check back on The Source as we roll out additional states each week. See Alaska page. According to data from the Council for Community and Economic Research, health services in Alaska are 70 – 200 percent more expensive than the national average. Many pressures influence Alaska’s health-care costs. They include expenses related to recruiting providers from out of state, lack of competition, the state’s small population. In …
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Spotlight on State: Alabama
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor July 19, 2021
This is part of a series of summaries that highlight notable legislation and initiatives in health policy and reform of all 50 states. Check back on The Source as we roll out additional states each week. See Alabama page. Alabama is one of the few states that prohibits most non-compete provisions in employment contracts for professionals, which include physicians. Specifically, the courts held that statutory exemptions allowing non-competes in employment contracts do not apply to professionals and that physicians and other medical providers are professionals under state law. While the …
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Biden Executive Order Seeks to Tackle Healthcare Consolidation and Boost Competition
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor July 12, 2021
In an encouraging boost to efforts to promote healthcare competition and price transparency, President Biden signed a sweeping executive order that targets consolidation and lack of competition in the healthcare industry, among others. As part of the Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy released on July 9th, the President targeted specific market players in the healthcare sector, including hospitals, health insurers, and prescription drug manufacturers. The Executive Order affirms the policy of the Biden Administration “to enforce the antitrust laws to combat the excessive concentration of industry, …
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Healthcare Merger Challenges: Q2 2021 Update
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor June 15, 2021
In this mid-year issue of Litigation and Enforcement Highlights, we provide updates on several pending healthcare transactions. As much of the country recovers from COVID-19, healthcare entities continue to actively pursue proposed mergers and affiliations that could further change the landscape of the healthcare market. In the last update, federal enforcement agencies saw a mixed bag of results to their enforcement efforts, with an FTC loss against Jefferson-Albert Einstein, a DOJ settlement with Geisinger-Evangelical, and several proposed mergers that buckled under antitrust scrutiny (see case reference table below). Since then, …
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Spotlight on State: Florida
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor June 7, 2021
This is part of a series of summaries that highlight notable legislation and initiatives in health policy and reform of all 50 states. Check back on The Source as we roll out additional states each week. See Florida page. Florida is an active state in promoting healthcare price transparency. A key effort is the state’s all-payer claims database, which was mandated by the legislature and implemented in 2016. It also has a consumer-facing website, FloridaHealthFinder.gov, which allows consumers to view performance and outcome data, including average costs, for healthcare facilities …
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Spotlight on State: Texas
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor June 4, 2021
This is part of a series of summaries that highlight notable legislation and initiatives in health policy and reform of all 50 states. Check back on The Source as we roll out additional states each week. See Texas page. For several legislative terms, Texas has enacted legislation to explore the desirability and feasibility of mandating an all-payer claims database (APCD), while the state ran a voluntary claims data collection effort through the University of Texas Center for Healthcare Data. The medical and pharmacy claims collected from the voluntary effort account …
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Spotlight on State: Colorado
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor June 3, 2021
This is part of a series of summaries that highlight notable legislation and initiatives in health policy and reform of all 50 states. Check back on The Source as we roll out additional states each week. See Colorado page. Colorado is a state to watch with aggressive and ahead-of-the-curve efforts to contain healthcare costs and promote health system reform in the state. In 2019, Governor Jared Polis signed an executive order that established the Office of Saving People Money on Health Care, with the goal to study, identify and implement …
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[Case Brief] Sidibe v. Sutter Health: The Oldest Chapter in the Sutter Antitrust Saga Sees New Light for Class Plaintiffs
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor May 17, 2021
See case page: Sidibe v. Sutter Health As all eyes were fixated on UFCW & Employers Benefit Trust v. Sutter Health (UEBT), the landmark state antitrust lawsuit that the California attorney general brought against Sutter Health, another long-standing litigation against Sutter in federal court for similar claims has largely gone under the radar. With the final judgment in the state action set to be approved in state court this July, we turn our attention to Sidibe v. Sutter Health, the other case to watch in the ongoing antitrust challenge against …
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Spotlight on State: Virginia
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor May 4, 2021
This is part of a series of summaries that highlight notable legislation and initiatives in health policy and reform of all 50 states. Check back on The Source as we roll out additional states each week. See Virginia page. Virginia is an active state in promoting price transparency in health care. Virginia operates an All-Payer Claims Database and provides other datasets online relating to cost and quality, including the average charge data for 25 of the most frequently reported health care services. All medical facilities and health maintenance organizations are required to …
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Spotlight on State: West Virginia
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor April 29, 2021
This is part of a series of summaries that highlight notable legislation and initiatives in health policy and reform of all 50 states. Check back on The Source as we roll out additional states each week. See West Virginia page. West Virginia has made progress in healthcare price transparency on several fronts, including implementing an all-payer claims database, passing legislation easing access to medical records, and creating annual financial disclosure requirements for facilities in order to determine the reasonableness of healthcare costs among providers. The state earns a high grade …
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