We are excited to announce that The Source’s Executive Editor Jaime S. King has been awarded the Jerry S. Cohen Award by the American Antitrust Institute for her article “The Anti-Competitive Potential of Cross-Market Mergers in Health Care,” which she co-authored with Erin C. Fuse Brown of Georgia State University College of Law. The article won in the “Best Antitrust and Mergers Article” category and discusses the potential for cross-market acquisition to harm competition, and whether existing antitrust laws could support challenges to cross-market acquisitions. The Cohen Award was created in …

Source Advisory Board Member Tim Greaney co-authored a two-part white paper with Professor Barak Richman of Duke University for the American Antitrust Institute (AAI) on healthcare competition. In Part I of the series, Greaney and Richman provide an in-depth analysis of consolidation in the markets for delivery and payment of healthcare services by taking a close look at horizontal and vertical mergers in both the provider and insurer markets. The paper identifies major competition concerns brought on by consolidation and suggest further academic and policy research to support more vigorous antitrust enforcement. In Part II, Greaney and …

The Source on Healthcare Price &amp|Competition is partnering with Catalyst for Payment Reform to establish a searchable database tracking state laws and regulations in the area of healthcare price and competition. Supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the database will focus on laws and regulations governing healthcare price transparency, provider market power, provider payment, provider networks and health insurance benefit design. It aims to provide stakeholders and policymakers with an interactive tool to understand and promote cost control and competition in healthcare. The database is projected to launch in 2019 and …

The Source recently contributed to a white paper published by the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) that weighs in on whether state drug rate-setting legislation violates patent law. The Source’s Managing Editor Amy Y. Gu and Senior Research Fellow Katie Gudiksen, along with a team of legal experts at the Institute for Innovation Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, explored in States’ Rights: A Patent Law Analysis of NASHP Rate Setting Model Act what states can do to address the rising cost of …

The Source recently hosted an event on private antitrust litigation in healthcare at our home of UC Hastings College of the Law. The event brought together litigators, economists, and academics for an afternoon of lively discussion to share the challenges of and tips for litigating in this area. It was an opportunity for the type of interdisciplinary exchange that is at the heart of the Source’s mission. As a forum for resource and discussion of healthcare price and competition issues, the Source hopes to host additional events in the future …

Check out the latest issue of Health Affairs with a special focus on market concentration!  Read some great articles from Source board members Thomas Greaney, Robert Berenson and other all-stars of healthcare price and competition.

We will post all the news, articles, reports and other info from our holiday break when we return in January! See you then!

The first phase of the Anthem-Cigna merger trial ended on December 20, 2016 (see our blog post with updates on the trial here). In the case, DOJ is arguing that the $48 billion merger between Anthem and Cigna, two of the nation’s largest health insurers, violates federal antitrust law. To lay out the issues and offer predictions about how the court may decide the case, Health Affairs Blog published this article on the case by Source Advisory Board Member Thomas Greaney titled The Anthem/Cigna Merger Trial: Sifting Through The Evidence. In the post, Professor …

Last week’s big news was that the Department of Justice and a number of states have challenged Aetna’s proposed merger with Humana. As in any merger challenge, the way that the relevant product and geographic markets are defined is crucial to the court’s determination of whether the merger should be enjoined. According to the DOJ’s (and other states’) complaint, this merger would combine one of the two largest insurers of Medicare Advantage (Humana) with the fourth largest (Aetna). This, the complaint alleges, would further concentrate 364 county Medicare Advantage markets that are …

States Can Contain Health Care Costs. Here’s How. By RICHARD M. SCHEFFLER and SHERRY GLIED May 2, 2016 THE architects of the Affordable Care Act counted on competition in the health insurance market to keep costs down and quality high. While the law has accomplished many of its coverage and cost-containment goals, its vision of a more competitive insurance market seems to be fading. To continue reading, see the op-ed in the New York Times.