Friday, July 30, 2004
FTC and DOJ question state mandates, certificates of need
[Press release, "FTC and DOJ Issue Report on Competition and Health Care," The U.S. Federal Trade Commission, 23 July 2004.]
The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice recently released a report entitled "Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition," that, among other things urges state governments to reconsider the effectiveness of insurance mandates and certificate of need policies:
Culminating a two-year project, the report reviews the role of competition and provides recommendations to improve the balance between competition and regulation in health care. The report provides significant recommendations and observations on a variety of topics, including the availability of information regarding the price and quality of health-care services; cross-subsidies; physician collective bargaining; insurance mandates; hospital merger analysis; managed care organizations’ bargaining power; and hospital group purchasing organizations.
The report is based on 27 days of FTC/DOJ Joint Hearings on Health Care and Competition Law and Policy, held from February through October 2003; an FTC-sponsored workshop in September 2002; and independent research. The hearings gathered testimony and written comments from more than 300 participants, including representatives of various provider groups, insurers, employers, lawyers, patient advocates, and leading scholars on subjects ranging from antitrust and economics to health-care quality and informed consent. Almost 6,000 pages of transcripts of the hearings and workshop and all written submissions are available on the FTC’s Web site.
States should...
[r]econsider whether Certificate of Need Programs best serve their citizens’ health-care needs. On balance, the FTC and DOJ believe that such programs are not successful in containing health care costs, and they pose serious anticompetitive risks that usually outweigh their purported economic benefits
reconsider whether current mandates best serve their citizens’ health-care needs. When deciding whether to mandate particular benefits, governments should consider that mandates are likely to reduce competition, restrict consumer choice, raise the cost of health insurance, and increase the number of uninsured Americans.
[Matthew Hisrich, "State Mandates reduce insurance affordability," The Flint Hills Center, May 2004.]
[Press release, "FTC and DOJ Issue Report on Competition and Health Care," The U.S. Federal Trade Commission, 23 July 2004.]
The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice recently released a report entitled "Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition," that, among other things urges state governments to reconsider the effectiveness of insurance mandates and certificate of need policies:
Culminating a two-year project, the report reviews the role of competition and provides recommendations to improve the balance between competition and regulation in health care. The report provides significant recommendations and observations on a variety of topics, including the availability of information regarding the price and quality of health-care services; cross-subsidies; physician collective bargaining; insurance mandates; hospital merger analysis; managed care organizations’ bargaining power; and hospital group purchasing organizations.
The report is based on 27 days of FTC/DOJ Joint Hearings on Health Care and Competition Law and Policy, held from February through October 2003; an FTC-sponsored workshop in September 2002; and independent research. The hearings gathered testimony and written comments from more than 300 participants, including representatives of various provider groups, insurers, employers, lawyers, patient advocates, and leading scholars on subjects ranging from antitrust and economics to health-care quality and informed consent. Almost 6,000 pages of transcripts of the hearings and workshop and all written submissions are available on the FTC’s Web site.
States should...
[r]econsider whether Certificate of Need Programs best serve their citizens’ health-care needs. On balance, the FTC and DOJ believe that such programs are not successful in containing health care costs, and they pose serious anticompetitive risks that usually outweigh their purported economic benefits
reconsider whether current mandates best serve their citizens’ health-care needs. When deciding whether to mandate particular benefits, governments should consider that mandates are likely to reduce competition, restrict consumer choice, raise the cost of health insurance, and increase the number of uninsured Americans.
[Matthew Hisrich, "State Mandates reduce insurance affordability," The Flint Hills Center, May 2004.]
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