FTC and DOJ under Fire for "Anti-Hospital" Bias at Conference

A recent workshop hosted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) to examine antitrust issues in healthcare featured an anti-hospital bias and was not represented sufficiently by healthcare providers, according to the American Hospital Association and other trade groups. In a letter dated March 16, the trade groups condemned the conference’s “lack of objectivity and balance” and “overwhelming anti-hospital points of view” in discussing the anti-competitive concerns that arise as hospitals increasingly consolidate and collaborate.

The conference focused on the risk of price increases and leverage and ignored the benefits of healthcare consolidation, said the letter. According to the letter, such benefits include rescuing failing hospitals and improving the quality of services at hospitals with insufficient funds to improve equipment.

The conference only featured one representative of the hospital system, said the letter, who spoke regarding Accountable Care Organizations, not the benefits of hospital consolidation. The trade groups offered to provide panelists and subject matter in the future to ensure “robust and complete marketplace information” and “a balanced public record and a sound basis for public policy decisions.”

— Sarah Anna Santos, Hunton & Williams LLP, Charlotte, NC

^{Copyright © 2015, American Bar Association. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or downloaded or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association. The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of the American Bar Association, the Section of Litigation, this committee, or the employer(s) of the author(s).}