Antitrust Enforcement
The FTC’s Hospital Merger Program: Coming A Cropper?
Guest Author July 12, 2016
By Guest Blogger: Professor Thomas L. Greaney Federal antitrust oversight of hospital consolidation has come upon hard times. Over the last two months the Federal Trade Commission suffered three notable setbacks in challenges to hospital mergers. Federal district courts in Pennsylvania and Illinois have refused to issue preliminary injunctions in cases in which the agency claimed the combined market shares of the merging parties were in excess of 64 and 50 percent respectively. Both cases turned largely on disputes over defining the always-elusive “relevant geographic market” in which merging hospitals compete. …
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California Dept. of Insurance Asks DOJ to Block Anthem-Cigna Deal
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor June 16, 2016
Update: On June 16, 2016, 10 weeks after holding hearings on the proposed Anthem-Cigna merger, Insurance Commissioner Jones reported his department’s determination that the merger would be anti-competitive and that access, quality, and affordability would suffer as a result of the transaction. The text of the press release is as follows: SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones today urged the U.S. Department of Justice to block the merger deal between Anthem, Inc., and Cigna Corporation. After an extensive review of the Anthem and Cigna merger, Commissioner Jones issued detailed findings that …
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DOJ & North Carolina AG Target Same Insurer-Provider Contract Clauses as California’s Sutter Plaintiffs
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor June 14, 2016
Last week, the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, along with the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office, filed suit against Carolinas Healthcare System (“CHS”), challenging the large provider’s use of certain contract provisions in its agreements with insurers. DOJ claims that CHS, the dominant and most expensive provider in the Charlotte, North Carolina area, uses its market power to insist that the four largest insurers in the area agree not to steer their subscribers to lower-cost/higher-value providers. The last major DOJ case involving insurer-provider contracts was the Antitrust Division’s 2010 challenge to …
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Sutter Plaintiffs Picking Up Steam in CA Antitrust Case
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor April 29, 2016
See UFCW & Employers Benefit Trust v. Sutter Health case page. Last fall, we updated you on a key California case brought by self-funded payers against Sutter Health, the dominant health care provider in Northern California, styled UFCW &|Employers Benefit Trust v. Sutter Health. At that time, the litigation had been hamstrung by Sutter’s attempts to take the dispute to arbitration, which ultimately were unsuccessful, landing the parties back in state court in San Francisco County. Two years after the plaintiffs filed their complaint in April 2014, the court denied Sutter’s …
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Sutter loses appeal re arbitration|must litigate against union in state court
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor April 28, 2016
See UFCW & Employers Benefit Trust v. Sutter Health case page. The Source has been following UFCW &|Employers Benefit Trust v. Sutter Health, since the complaint it was filed in state court in San Francisco in April 7, 2014. A grocery store union is the named plaintiff in the putative class action whose class includes all self-funded payers in California who compensated Sutter for acute care services while the company was engaging in anticompetitive practices alleged to violate California’s antitrust law, the Cartwright Act, and other state statutes relating to unfair …
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House Passes Bill to Lessen FTC Merger Enforcement Powers in Name of Standardization
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor March 29, 2016
There seems to be a fair amount of disagreement in Washington lately over the federal merger review process. On the one hand, the American Antitrust Institute is calling for increased merger enforcement from the next presidential administration, and on the other, the House just passed H.R. 2745, a bill that limits the Federal Trade Commission’s enforcement authority. The bill, which is opposed by Democrats and the White House, passed in the House 235-171, largely along party lines. House Republicans claim the bill addresses their concerns that a proposed merger is …
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California Regulators Approve Health Net/Centene Deal With Conditions
Elizabeth Nicholson, Research Fellow March 23, 2016
UPDATE: March 23, 2016: California state regulators approved the Centene and Health Net merger—subject to strong conditions. Centene announced that it received approval from the California Department of Managed Health Care (“DMHC”), on March 22, 2016, and approval from the California Department of Insurance (“CDI”), on March 23, 2016. Both state agencies placed significant—and expensive—conditions on the merger. DMHC provided an extensive list of undertakings. In addition to typical closing requirements, DMHC is requiring Centene to satisfy unique conditions. The San Francisco Business Times reported that DMHC’s conditions carry a “total …
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FTC Expresses Concerns About West VA’s Pro-Healthcare Merger Legislation
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor March 10, 2016
The FTC today expressed concerns about proposed legislation in West Virginia aimed at facilitating provider mergers in official written comments to the measure. The state’s legislation was drafted after the FTC challenged a West Virginia hospital merger in November, which we blogged about here. The FTC’s concerns are laid out in its press release, included below. In short, the FTC says it isn’t trying to prevent the good healthcare mergers, just the bad ones. March, 10, 2016 FTC Press Release: Federal Trade Commission staff submitted written comments on the competitive impact …
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Source Advisory Board Member Greaney Weighs in on Big Insurance Mergers
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor February 25, 2016
Last month, in a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division, the American Antitrust Institute described the competitive and consumer concerns surrounding the proposed health insurance mergers of Aetna-Humana and Anthem-Cigna. Source Advisory Board Member and AAI Advisor Tim Greaney co-authored the letter with AAI President Diana Moss. Professor Greaney testified before a House subcommittee last September on the dangers posed by the mergers, and submitted this prepared statement (as did Source Executive Editor Jaime King, who submitted this prepared statement). AAI’s letter argues, based on economic evidence, …
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FTC Closed Out 2015 Focusing on Provider Mergers with Mighty Market Shares
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor January 11, 2016
The FTC closed out 2015 with a number of actions aimed at anticompetitive provider combinations. Hospital mergers were the primary focus, with three hospital merger challenges filed in the last two months of 2015, but they were not the only providers subject to challenge, as the FTC also settled over an allegedly anticompetitive merger with two specialty physicians practices in late December. The challenged hospital mergers involved providers in the Huntington, West Virginia, Chicago, Illinois, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania areas. Pennsylvania was also where the FTC challenged the merger of orthopedics practices. …
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