Autumn 2014, Volume 9, Number 2

Obama Care, which attempts to increase coverage at less cost, has brought a classic cost-benefit question in health care to the forefront: How to improve health care while controlling costs? What will be the long-term impact of having ‘low health care costs’ as policy objective of the health care regime? What are the adjustments that antitrust law may have to make to accommodate the goals of healthcare policy that may be not be aligned with the policy goals of antitrust law? How does FTC treat the quality improvement claims in some of its most recent hospital merger cases? we note the conflict is not just between government and private entities — but also between different federal government agencies, and state and federal authorities. Resolution looks to be very tough.