Health Care Antitrust

This course will explore the issues of law and public policy in applying federal antitrust law to the health care industry. The purpose of antitrust law is to protect competition as the way to enhance consumer welfare. However, with regard to the health care industry, there is a significant dispute as to whether market competition promotes or inhibits the welfare of consumers. In addition, health care providers and payers operate under a complex mixture of market competition and government regulation, which significantly affects the application of federal antitrust law in this context.

Specific topics will include whether Congress should extend the antitrust immunity for collective bargaining to joint negotiation by physicians with health plans; whether state governments should replace market competition in health care services with state regulation under the state action immunity; how federal courts should apply the limited antitrust immunity for peer review activities; and how courts and enforcement agencies should analyze health care markets for purposes of horizontal and vertical mergers.