U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice (2004)

‘Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition’

Available here

• A report examining the role of competition in addressing the challenges to U.S. health care.
• The report is the result of 27 days of Joint Hearings from February to October 2003, which gathered testimony from around 250 panellists from many different areas of expertise and interests
• It aims to assess the current role of competition in different areas of heath care, how this role could be enhanced to increase consumer welfare, and how antitrust enforcement should operate to protect existing and potential competition.
• In the course of eight chapters it offers industry information and competition law recommendations on the following five areas: (i) Background and overview of health care markets, (ii) Physicians (iii) Hospitals (iv) Pharmaceuticals (v) Insurers and other third party payment programs.

Key Recommendations:

• The report makes 6 key recommendations for the future of the U.S. health care market:
  
  1. Private payers, governments and providers should continue experiments to improve incentives for providers to lower costs and enhance quality and for consumers to seek lower prices and better quality.
  
  2. States should decrease barriers to entry into provider markets.
  
  3. Governments should re-examine the role of subsidies in health care markets in light of their inefficiencies and potential to distort competition.
  
  4. Governments should not enact legislation to permit independent physicians to bargain collectively.
  
  5. States should consider the potential costs and benefits of regulating pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) transparency.
  
  6. Governments should reconsider whether current mandates best serve their citizens’ health care needs. When deciding whether to mandate particular benefits, governments should consider that such mandates are likely to reduce competition, restrict consumer choice, raise the cost of health insurance, and increase the number of uninsured Americans.

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