TL/DR –
The Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice under President Trump is prioritizing enforcement efforts towards ensuring free market competition, particularly in the healthcare sector. The division is focused on tackling business practices that harm competition and increase costs for American consumers. This includes investigating potentially anticompetitive conduct across the healthcare system, from hospital systems engaging in restrictive contracts to the role of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) in the prescription drug supply chain.
Insight into Antitrust Enforcement in Healthcare
It’s an honor to be part of the Crescent City conference and meet members of Transparency Rx. Your expertise in healthcare and prescription drug pricing is invaluable. In return, I’ll share the Antitrust Division’s perspective under President Trump’s administration, especially in healthcare. We believe robust antitrust enforcement is key to a free market that supports the American Dream.
Setting Priorities in Enforcement
The Antitrust Division constantly decides on how to best use our law enforcement resources. Our efforts span from criminal prosecution of antitrust law violators, reviewing mergers that might damage competition, to ending business practices causing anticompetitive effects. We focus our efforts where they can greatly benefit American households.
Maintaining a Competitive Free Market
Free markets should be truly free and competitive. They shouldn’t be marred by restraints damaging competition or unjust practices benefiting dominant firms. As antitrust enforcers, we use our legal authority to protect and benefit Americans, adhering to President Trump’s “America First” antitrust goal.
Healthcare: A Priority Sector
The Antitrust Division, under President Trump, is focused on the challenges in healthcare markets and how antitrust enforcement can enhance consumer choice and affordability. Healthcare is crucial for all Americans. Competition can bring lower prices, higher quality and innovation. Unfortunately, we suspect that competition is being shackled by anticompetitive conduct and restraints, especially in healthcare.
Rising Healthcare Costs
The rising cost of healthcare risks harm across the economy. These costs are borne by individual households, employers, and the federal government. Rising health insurance premiums burden small businesses and affect employment growth. They also jeopardize Medicare’s financial health. We take conduct that costs taxpayers very seriously.
Complexities in Healthcare Markets
Healthcare markets have complex features affecting competitive dynamics. Consumers often lack information about the prices of the services and medicine they receive. Incentives operate unusually due to the role of insurance. These healthcare market features can potentially create opportunities for rent-seeking and lead to worse health outcomes.
Implication of Vertical Integration
The healthcare industry is seeing an increase in vertical integration. While it can have potential benefits, it also poses risks to competition. In the healthcare context, vertical integration could create conflicts of interest and may not always benefit consumers. We take these risks very seriously, especially when anticompetitive practices could harm patients by making healthcare unaffordable or lowering its quality.
Antitrust Division’s Role in Healthcare
Despite these complexities, the Antitrust Division is not deterred. Our team of attorneys and economists are deeply knowledgeable about competition issues in healthcare markets. We are committed to investigating and bringing impactful enforcement actions that can benefit consumers under a President who is committed to promoting affordable, quality healthcare.
Antitrust Actions in Healthcare
To this end, we brought our first two enforcement actions against the anticompetitive contracting practices of two powerful hospital systems, OhioHealth and NewYork-Presbyterian. These hospitals, instead of focusing on saving lives and improving patient care, are harming patients by using contractual restraints to block competition that would improve quality and lower prices.
The Future of Antitrust Actions
The complaints filed against OhioHealth and NewYork-Presbyterian serve as a precedent against hospital systems using similar tactics. We anticipate that our current cases will result in relief for health consumers in Ohio and New York and will serve as a template for future challenges against hospital systems.
Antitrust Investigation of PBMs
We are closely observing anticompetitive conduct involving companies across the healthcare system. Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) are an area of concern. If you have any information about anticompetitive practices involving PBMs or elsewhere in healthcare, please reach out to the attorneys in our Healthcare and Consumer Products Section or use our healthcare competition complaint portal at healthycompetition.gov.
I hope this gives you insight into our perspective on antitrust enforcement in healthcare. We are fully committed to this vitally important tool in addressing challenges in our nation’s healthcare system under President Trump’s administration.
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