Under the bill, state-certified healthcare collaboratives comprised of hospitals, physicians and other providers would be exempt from state and federal antitrust laws.
After reviewing the legislation, the FTC determined the bill “would likely lead to dramatically increased costs and decreased access to healthcare for Texas patients.”
The FTC provided the following statement:
“The FTC recognizes that collaboration may generate opportunities for healthcare providers to innovate to achieve cost savings when they are clinically integrated. At the same time, however, the FTC also understands that collaborations among competitors, as will occur through the formation of healthcare collaboratives, may raise concerns about competition. The FTC staff comment explained that Texas Senate Bill 8 would deprive health care consumers of the benefits of competition because it would immunize health care collaboratives from the antitrust laws. Antitrust standards already distinguish between effective clinical integration among health care providers that have the potential to achieve cost savings and improve health outcomes and anticompetitive collaboration and price fixing by health care providers, which are likely to increase health care costs. Because antitrust laws already allow procompetitive collaborations among competitors, an antitrust exemption is unnecessary to achieve cost savings or promote improved quality and access to health care. Exempting the coordinated activities of health care providers, especially when the collaboration of these organizations involves negotiating reimbursement contracts with insurance companies, would eliminate price competition. This would likely lead to increased costs and decreased access to health care that may not be prevented by the review provisions in the Bill.”
The FTC examined the legislation after a request by Texas State Representative Elliott Naishtat (D).
Read the FTC news release on Texas Senate Bill 8.
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