FTC seeks to determine if hospital monopolies help or harm patients

The Federal Trade Commission asked a Vanderbilt University law professor to set the stage for a discussion on state laws that shield merging hospital rivals from antitrust actions. In the audience were health care executives convinced that these laws save hospitals from closure and improve people’s health, state regulators charged with overseeing entities with which they had little experience, insurers who think monopolies harm their customers, and people in Virginia’s coalfields who believe they are losing vital services as a result of a recent merger.