In 2021, President Biden began his administration with an executive order recognizing that “competition has weakened in too many markets, denying Americans the benefits of an open economy and widening racial, income, and wealth inequality.” After decades of ineffective antitrust enforcement that allowed consolidation in many industries, including health care, the executive order announced a “whole of government competition policy” intended to strengthen competition and enhance antitrust enforcement throughout US industries, with a special focus on health care markets.

In July of 2023, the Administration took an important step in fleshing out that policy by releasing new draft Merger Guidelines. In this article, we explain what is contained in those proposed guidelines and the ways in which they meaningfully differ from previous antitrust enforcement policies.