Forbes April 30, 2024
A new study highlights a pervasive government failure to prevent hospital mergers that give providers excess pricing power. It is a power, moreover, that the “pricing transparency” fantasy is unlikely to dilute.
The study by a group of Yale economists found that while there were more than 1,100 hospital mergers from 2002 to 2020, the Federal Trade Commission took action against just 13 of them, or about 1%. But if regulators had used the standard screening tools designed to flag deals likely to lessen competition and boost prices, 20% of the transactions – 238 deals – should have been flagged for review.
Unsurprisingly, hospitals handed the power to increase their prices did just that. The researchers found than on average...
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