Healthcare Consolidation
Is M&A for Insurers Bad? Ask the Blue Cross Plaintiffs.
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor June 25, 2015
The focus of most antitrust concerns in healthcare over the past few years has been provider consolidation and provider market power. But, lately all eyes appear to be on insurers, who, as The Source tweeted on June 16 and the Wall Street Journal echoed three days later, followed by CNBC yesterday, seem to have caught merger fever (ok, we said “consolidation fever,” and we said that they seemed to have caught it from the providers, whereas they didn’t trace the fever’s origin). As the five largest insurers, United Health, Cigna, …
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Update on 9th Circuit Appeal of Antitrust Case Against Sutter
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor June 8, 2015
June 2015 Update: Since our last post on this case, Sutter filed its answering brief, and the plaintiffs filed their reply in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. As timing would have it, between the answering brief and the reply, the Ninth Circuit decided the St. Luke’s appeal, another case that focused on geographic market definition in a healthcare market, in February of this year (see our blog post on that case). Accordingly, the Sidibe plaintiffs relied heavily on St. Luke’s in their reply brief to argue for a market definition …
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May Articles & Reports Roundup
Jaime S. King, Executive Editor June 2, 2015
Greetings! For the academics among us, its time to wrap up your end of the year grading and see what you’ve been missing in the literature this month. Two themes came out of the literature in May. First, (no surprise to anyone) the American public continues to be frustrated with the lack of transparency and rationality in healthcare prices, but there are some signs of hope. Second, policymakers and academics have proposed numerous payment reforms, which despite their varying degrees of success, only get at a fraction of the problem. …
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St. Luke’s Request for Rehearing Denied
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor April 7, 2015
UPDATE: April 21, 2015 The Ninth Circuit announced on April 21 that St. Luke’s petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc were being denied after a vote of the judges. It remains to be seen whether the case will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. UPDATE, April 7, 2015 Late last month, St. Luke’s and Saltzer filed a combined petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc with the Ninth Circuit. The providers took issue with the appellate court’s handling of the efficiencies defense, geographic markets analysis, and what they call “the …
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March Articles & Reports Roundup
Jaime S. King, Executive Editor April 1, 2015
It’s been a big month in health law! King v. Burwell was argued before the Supreme Court, the House voted to repeal the sustainable growth rate (SGR), a two-year CHIP extension was passed, and the Supreme Court held that physicians did not have the right to sue state Medicaid programs for greater reimbursements in Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center. While you were busy reading about these and countless other developments in our ever changing healthcare system, quite a bit has been published related to healthcare prices and competition. This month’s …
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Update: Prime Backs out of Daughters Hospital Deal Due to California AG’s “Onerous” Conditions
Jaime S. King, Executive Editor and Anne Marie Helm March 10, 2015
Update (March 10, 2015): Today Prime announced that it would not go forward with its proposed acquisition of six Daughters of Charity hospitals. Prime cited the California Attorney General’s onerous conditions as its reason for backing out of the deal. Those conditions, which certainly tested Prime’s commitment to the type of acquisition and future plans for the charity hospitals that the AG’s office envisioned, are detailed below in our original post on this potential sale. The remaining challenge is for Daughters, whose future is uncertain without a purchaser to turn …
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The FTC is on a Roll with its Second Appellate Victory in Two Weeks
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor February 26, 2015
The FTC appears to be on a roll. On February 25, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the Fourth Circuit’s upholding of the Commission’s administrative ruling that the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners (“Board”) had illegally restrained trade under the FTC Act by forcing nondentists to cease offering teeth whitening services in that state. The underlying facts were that nondentists had been offering teeth whitening services for lower prices than were licensed dentists. In response to complaints from dentists, the Board took action to exclude nondentists from the …
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Updated Jan. 30: In the World of Healthcare Mergers, All Eyes Should be on Massachusetts
Jaime S. King, Executive Editor January 30, 2015
UPDATE (Jan. 30, 2015): Today, in a 48-page decision, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Sanders declined to enter the consent judgment reflecting the deal negotiated between former Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and Partners Healthcare, the Boston Globe reported today. The decision comes three days after new Attorney General filed a Notice of her office’s position on the deal, at the request of the court. That Notice raised concerns about terms of the deal, and indicated that if the court rejected the consent judgment, the A.G.’s office would void its agreement with Partners …
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December Articles & Reports Roundup
Jaime S. King, Executive Editor January 3, 2015
Happy New Year! The December Roundup is here to help you ease into work and make sure you did not miss anything during all the holiday festivities! We will first highlight a few articles on the role of competition and antitrust enforcement in controlling healthcare costs. If you read one article this month, have it be this one. In the December 11th issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Edith Ramirez, Chair of the Federal Trade Commission, published Antitrust Enforcement in Health Care—Controlling Costs, Improving Quality. In this article, …
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FTC v. St. Luke’s Appeal: Video & Analysis
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor November 28, 2014
Last month, a three-judge Ninth Circuit panel in Portland heard arguments in the appeal of Saint Alphonsus Medical Center, et al v. St. Luke’s Health System, LTD, et al. Watch the video of the hearing. The Ninth Circuit In the arguments, counsel for the appellants focused on the benefits that the acquisition, which was stayed pending appeal, would bring to the community. Jack Beirig of Sidley Austin, who argued the case for St. Luke’s, opened by claiming that the district court had not considered the deals’ potential benefits, and assertion contested by the panel, …
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