DOJ Puts Healthcare Monopolies On Notice With New Task Force
Washington, D.C. — The American Economic Liberties Project is releasing the following statement in response to the Department of Justice’s new Task Force on Health Care Monopolies and Collusion to tackle market power issues across the healthcare industry.
“Like Big Tech, Big Medicine is full of monopolization and scams,” said Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project. “From tackling serial acquisitions, vertical integration, the misuse of data and more, this task force signals that the Antitrust Division recognizes the seriousness of consolidated healthcare markets and will be going after corporations such as UnitedHealth Group and other medical giants with the same vigor they are using to pursue Google and Apple. The antitrust laws are not suggestions.”
Economic Liberties released a new paper last week laying out the causes and consequences of the contemporary wave of vertical consolidation and proposing a wide-ranging set of solutions as a new “industrial policy” for healthcare. The paper highlights how insurance giants like UnitedHealth Group are rapidly restructuring as vertically integrated conglomerates—fueled by wasteful government subsidies and a lax regulatory regime
In 2019, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division announced a comprehensive review of monopoly power in online markets, the goal of which was to investigate how Big Tech corporations use their power to stifle innovation, box out competition and harm consumers. Five years later, the Antitrust Division has launched suits against Apple and Google, some of the most notorious monopolists in tech. Today’s task force on healthcare signals that the DOJ will be tackling monopoly power in healthcare with a similar determination.
Read “Medicare Advantage and Vertical Consolidation in Healthcare” here.
Learn more about Economic Liberties here.
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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.