The U.S. Justice Department building in Washington. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM
The U.S. Justice Department has formed an Anticompetitive Regulations Task Force, and one goal of the task force is to eliminate laws and regulations that weaken competition in health care, department officials announced last week.
The new task force is asking for comments on ways to reduce health care red tape.
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"Laws and regulations in health care markets too often discourage doctors and hospitals from providing low-cost, high-quality health care and instead encourage overbilling and consolidation," officials say in the task force formation announcement.
"These kinds of unnecessary anticompetitive regulations put affordable health care out of reach for millions of American families," officials say.
Officials say they're seeking comments from all market participants, including consumers, consumer advocates, small businesses, employers, trade groups and industry analysts,
The task force posted the request for comments on the Regulations.gov website. Comments are due May 26.
Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater, the head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, announced the formation of the task force. Slater recently headed a team that filed a "statement of interest of the United States" supporting doctors and hospitals in a suit against MultiPlan, a health plan network administrator.
The plaintiffs contend that the network administrator's use of automated systems and databases to calculate the rates plans pay providers for out-of-network care is unfair and competitive.
MultiPlan contends that it's using publicly available data and legal, straightforward formulas to try to protect employer health plans and other payers against unreasonably high claims for out-of-network care.
Related: DOJ backs health care providers in MultiPlan 'price fixing' antitrust suit
Justice Department officials emphasized their concern about "regulatory capture," or the possibility that special interests and big businesses may capture federal agencies and persuade agencies to adopt rules that serve their own interests.
"When regulations serve the few and impose undue burdens on small businesses, private enterprise, and entrepreneurs, they also harm competition and ultimately hurt American consumers, workers and businesses," officials say. "For example, regulations can increase compliance costs, preventing businesses from competing on a level playing field with powerful corporations."
The department's new antitrust focus could lead to mixed feelings in the health insurance and employee benefits communities.
Employers and their benefits brokers tend to want to maximize competition and drive down prices.
Insurance regulators and insurance companies' actuaries tend to emphasize the difficulty of keeping insurers and benefit plans stable and the need to avoid structures that encourage health care providers or others to promise more care they can deliver or charge unsustainably low prices.
Antitrust specialists have also argued that some rules that seem as if they should increase health care market competition, such as health care price disclosure rules, may backfire and end up helping providers do more to push up the price of care than to help patients shop for cheaper care.
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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.
