“The work reported here confirms earlier
studies showing that hospitals are able to
extract higher private payments when they
hold more market power. Public policy has
been ambivalent with respect to the ongoing
consolidation within hospital markets. While
antitrust regulatory agencies have challenged
a number of hospital mergers in the past few
decades, these challenges rarely culminated in
decisions to disallow a merger. Now provisions
of the ACA are encouraging further consolidation
of hospitals and physicians, and the final antitrust review regulations from the Department
of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission
have eliminated the proposed mandatory
review of certain prospective ACOs.”