Bigger But Not Better: Hospital Mergers Increase Costs and Do Not Improve Quality
The final verdict on hospital networks is in. Despite all of the self promoting ads in the media, hospital mergers increase costs and do not improve quality. The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Director of the Bureau of Economics recently stated that when hospitals merge they face less competition and charge as much 40 to 50 […]
Hospital Consolidation Continues to Boost Costs, Narrow Access, and Impact Care Quality
As hospital consolidations swept the country over the last three decades, their executives predicted the moves would produce lower costs. But decades of health services research focused on the actual results of this trend have found the opposite. Consolidation has consistently produced higher care prices. Nevertheless in 2023, health care merger mania not only continues, […]
Addressing Hospital Concentration and Rising Consolidation in the United States
The US health system in general, and the US hospital sector in particular, are largely market-based. Both public and private payers rely on competition between hospitals to drive quality. Hospitals compete with one another over prices and quality in order to attract commercially insured patients and to be included in insurers’ networks. Each year, hospitals […]
Politico Opinion | Hospitals Are a Problem. Competition Is the Answer.
January 19, 2023 Antitrust strategies could go a long way toward reining in rising health care costs. Some things in health care are not so complicated. One rudimentary principle of economics applies in health care markets, as anywhere: When there’s less competition, prices are higher. This has been especially true for America’s hospitals, the largest […]
Boondoggle: The National, Bipartisan Loathing of Hospital Monopolies
State legislators of all political leanings are fed up. The United States, rather famously, has the highest health care prices in the developed world. And one of the chief drivers behind that is high hospital prices: Hospitals receive $1 in $3 dollars spent in the U.S. on health care, and they’re more profitable than other […]
The Hill: OPINION: Health care cronyism is fueling hospital consolidation and rising medical costs
Health care consolidation is a problem. Large hospital conglomerates are expanding, purchasing smaller hospitals and independent clinics. This isn’t market- or patient-driven consolidation. It isn’t bottom-up emergence of economies of scale. This is government regulation putting a finger on the scale and giving larger institutions an unfair advantage over their competition. It’s cronyism for tax-exempt […]