The Antitrust Week In Review

Here are some of the developments in antitrust news this past week that we found interesting and are following.

Two major hospital systems might be merging.  Continuing the trend in healthcare-provider consolidation, Providence Health & Services and St. Joseph Health announced Friday that they had signed a letter of intent to merge. The health systems cautioned that they were only in the “very early stages” of negotiations. If consummated, the merger would bring hospitals in California, Oregon, Texas, and several other states under common ownership. Antitrust enforcers have stated that they will analyze health-insurer consolidation industry-wide and not just deal-by-deal. The question is what effect will provider consolidation have on that analysis, and vice versa.