Healthcare Consolidation
The Source Roundup: February 2021 Edition
Alex Montague, Health Policy Researcher February 1, 2021
With the inauguration of a new administration in the White House, discussions ramped up on the future of health care and new legislative and regulatory possibilities. This month’s Roundup begins with three articles that look at ways to strengthen the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as well as the potential for more significant health reform through the implementation of a public option. On the price transparency front, we cover a report that looks at the effect of New Jersey’s final-offer arbitration system for resolving surprise billing disputes and the new price …
Continue Reading Download PDF
Litigation and Enforcement Highlights – January 2021
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor January 14, 2021
We kick off the new year with a handful of new developments in healthcare litigation and enforcement that transpired at the end of 2020. In price transparency, a pair of legal challenges intended to block transparency efforts in drug pricing and hospital pricing, respectively, were denied by the circuit courts. On the antitrust front, the Federal Trade Commission saw both victory and defeat in its challenges of proposed mergers that would lessen competition in the healthcare markets. Judges Refuses to Block California’s Drug Pricing Transparency Law SB 17 On …
Continue Reading Download PDF
The Source Roundup: January 2021 Edition
Alex Montague, Health Policy Researcher January 4, 2021
Happy New Year Source readers! In this month’s roundup, we take a look back at the last health policy articles of 2020 and look ahead to what 2021 holds. These pieces examine the continuing rise of national healthcare spending, the impacts of health market consolidation under the guise of healthcare delivery integration, the importance of state-level all-claims payer databases (APCDs), and the potential healthcare system reforms under the Biden administration. Healthcare Costs Underpinning most topics in this roundup is the issue of healthcare costs, prices, and spending. According to …
Continue Reading Download PDF
Year in Review: 2020 Sees A Flurry of Federal Healthcare Antitrust Challenges
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor December 14, 2020
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the nation, it has put economic stress on smaller healthcare providers, giving larger health systems the opportunity to gain market power through more rampant merger and acquisition activity. In response, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice also stepped up their antitrust enforcement efforts. In this year-end Litigation and Enforcement Highlights issue, we round up federal enforcement challenges of provider mergers in 2020 and look at the latest status of these actions. Jefferson Health/Albert Einstein (Pennsylvania) The Federal Trade Commission …
Continue Reading Download PDF
The Source Roundup: December 2020 Edition
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor December 1, 2020
In the final monthly roundup of this tumultuous year, we highlight articles and reports that examine 1) rising and varying healthcare costs and their pronounced impact on Americans during the pandemic; 2) antitrust enforcement challenges of private equity partial ownership and joint ventures; 3) continued success of the Affordable Care Act in both marketplace participation and coverage protections for Americans amidst the pandemic; and 4) value-based pricing for COVID-19 treatment and vaccines. Rising and Varying Healthcare Costs Increase Burden to Americans In the Kaiser Family Foundation report How costly …
Continue Reading Download PDF
The Source Convenes Interdisciplinary Panel of Experts and Stakeholders to Inform Policies to Promote Competition in Health Care
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor November 16, 2020
On November 13, The Source on Healthcare Price & Competition and the UC Berkeley Petris Center jointly hosted a virtual convening of some of the leading experts in law and economics in a workshop to review and evaluate current findings of our collaborative research series “The Role of States in Promoting Competition in Healthcare: A Legal and Economic Analysis.” Our research analyzes how state merger review authority and regulation of contracts between providers and insurers affect the price of healthcare services and insurance premiums. The interactive workshop, supported by Arnold …
Continue Reading Download PDF
The Source Roundup: November 2020 Edition
Alex Montague, Health Policy Researcher November 2, 2020
This month’s roundup arrives in the wake of the confirmation of a new Supreme Court justice, the final days of the 2020 presidential election, and record-breaking numbers of COVID-19 cases. In light of this historic time, we highlight articles and reports about the implications of the Supreme Court’s new dynamics for healthcare policy, health insurance coverage and affordability as discussed during the 2020 election, and the COVID-19 pandemic’s continuing impact on healthcare costs and coverage. We also look at the continuing effect of increasing consolidation in both the insurer and …
Continue Reading Download PDF
The Source Cited in Report on What States Can Learn About Provider Consolidation from the Sutter Health Settlement
Amy Y. Gu, Managing Editor September 23, 2020
Two papers published by The Source were cited in the latest Milbank Memorial Fund report “California’s Sutter Health Settlement: What States Can Learn About Protecting Residents from the Effects of Health Care Provider Consolidation”. The first, “Addressing Health Care Market Consolidation and High Prices”, is co-authored by The Source’s Jaime S. King and Katherine L. Gudiksen, with Robert A. Berenson et al. for the Urban Institute. The second paper is “Preventing Anticompetitive Healthcare Consolidation: Lessons From Five States”, written by Jaime S. King, Samuel M. Chang, et al. and jointly published …
Continue Reading Download PDF
Post-Mortem Reflection on SB 977: The Significance of What Could’ve and Should’ve Been
Mallory Warner, Health Policy Research Fellow September 16, 2020
In the 2020 legislative session, California attempted to markedly expand the attorney general’s (AG) powers to intervene in healthcare acquisitions and changes of control. Senate Bill (SB) 977 would have required AG approval before for-profit healthcare entities could consolidate in California. The passage of SB 977 would have been historic and a massive step in antitrust enforcement in the healthcare industry. Unfortunately, SB 977 failed this session without ever being discussed in the Assembly or the Senate. In this post, we review what SB 977 could have done, why it …
Continue Reading Download PDF
The Source Roundup: September 2020 Edition
Kendall Kohlmeyer, Student Fellow September 1, 2020
This month in health policy research, surprise billing and changes in market structures fuel concerns about competition and consumer choice. In addition, some studies on pharmaceutical costs produced hopeful reports. Healthcare Market Competition and Consolidation Consolidation Trends In a Health Affairs study, Consolidation of Providers into Health Systems Increased Substantially, 2016-18, Michael Furukawa et al. analyzed provider consolidation trends. The rate of physician affiliation with a health system increased by 11 to 51 percent in 2018. Based on the 556 health systems the authors identified, the median number of …
Continue Reading Download PDF