Our health care system might be in such a mess in part because carriers are incentivized to back provider monopolies.

Barak Richman testified on Capitol Hill this week that antitrust regulators have let hospitals –including nonprofits – use mergers, acquisitions and regulatory moats to buy and crush competitors and jack up prices.

Carriers have exacerbated the situation, treating big hospitals too gently and letting them charge far higher prices than average, "textbook monopolies" would be expected to, Richman said.

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Allison Bell

Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.