Click here to read the primary antitrust statutes.  Click here for FindLaw's Antitrust resources.
The FTC maintains a helpful web page on Health Care Antitrust Issues.

The Federal Trade Commission held an extensive set of hearings in 2003-2004 on Health Care Competition Law and Policy, resulting in a comprehensive report,
Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition (July 2004).

For general discussion, see Deborah Haas-Wilson, Managed Care and Monopoly Power: The Antitrust Challenge (2003); Len M. Nichols, Are Market Foreces Strong Enough to Deliver Efficient Health Care Systems? Confidence is Waning, 23(2) Health Aff. 8 (April 2004); Thomas L. Greaney, Chicago's Procrustean bed: applying antitrust law in health care, 71 Antitrust L.J. 857-920 (2004).  The latter article argues that courts and antitrust enforcers too often "brush over market imperfections in health care"  and too readily apply general precedent and economic rules of thumb without considering the unique features of health care markets.

The D.C. Circuit elaborated on the more flexible "quick look" approach in Polygram Holding, Inc. v. F.T.C.,  416 F.3d 29  (D.C. Cir. 2005), where it upheld an FTC decision that labeled a potentially per se illegal arrangement as "inherently suspect," which creates a rebuttable presumption of illegality that shifts the burden to the defendent to establish plausible countervailing efficiencies or justifications. 

In American Chiropractic Association. v. Trigon Healthcare Inc, __ F. 3d ___ (4th Cir. 2004), the court held that Blue Cross lacks the legal capacity to conspire with its panel of medical advisors because they share a "unity of interest" in improving patient care.  The court rejected antitrust claims arising from Blue Cross' capping payments for spinal manipulations by chiropractors.

On most-favorned nation clauses, see Beth Ann Wright, How MFN Clauses Used in the Health Care Industry Unreasonably Restrain Trade Under the Sherman Act, 18 J. L. & Health 29 (2003).

Return to home page.