A 2022 RAND Corporation study found that hospital mergers (market consolidation) can lead to increases in medical costs of 3 to 65 percent. The FTC’s director of economics said that hospitals that merge can charge 40 to 50 percent higher prices than they would have if they hadn’t merged.
Mergers can lead to job cuts, reduced tax revenues, and can negatively impact patient care by limiting access to some health care services. With numerous studies documenting the negative effects and health care costs continuing to rise, is there anything that can be done to slow market consolidation and mitigate the damage to patients and local economies?
In this webinar, New York Times reporter Reed Abelson, health care cost economist Zachary K. Goldman of the Oregon Health Authority, and Dr. Katie Gudiksen, editor-in-chief of Healthcare Cost and Competition Resources, explored these questions and discussed what steps some states, like Oregon, have taken to curb rising costs.
The series builds on a recent webinar series on the business of health care produced by AHCJ and Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE) called “Follow the Money.” After journalists are trained on how to “follow the money” in health care, the webinar series, supported by Peterson Milbank, will take a closer look at cost drivers and explore solutions. Journalists will learn about ways states, employers and other stakeholders can advance affordable health care and be better equipped to tell these stories in the context of their states and communities.
Reed Abelson
New York Times reporter
Reed Abelson is interested in the changing American healthcare landscape as more doctors and nurses work in hospitals and corporations and large healthcare conglomerates take over a larger share of the care we receive. Abelson also covers the business of health insurance and how it has changed since the introduction of the Affordable Care Act and the increasing privatization of government programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Abelson aims to maintain an unending curiosity about how the U.S. healthcare system works, and how it doesn’t.
Zachary Goldman
Health Cost Economist, Oregon Health Authority
Zachary Goldman is a Health Cost Economist at the Oregon Health Authority where he has worked for eight years. He currently focuses on Oregon’s Health Market Monitoring Program and Sustainable Health Cost Growth Target Program. Prior to joining the Oregon Health Authority, he was a Senior Policy Specialist for Covered California, a state-based health insurance marketplace. He also worked as a project manager and later as a clinic administrator for a Federally Qualified Health Center. Zachary earned his Bachelor of Arts from Brandeis University and his Master of Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Katie Gudiksen
Editor-in-Chief, a resource on health care pricing and competition
Dr. Katie Gudiksen is Editor-in-Chief of The Source on Healthcare Price and Competition. Dr. Gudiksen is an expert on health care reform and drivers of health care costs, with a particular interest in state policies to address market consolidation and market power. She helped draft model legislation to improve state merger review processes and prohibit anticompetitive terms in contracts between insurers and health systems.
Her current work focuses on evaluating options states have for limiting excessive provider prices, including cost-growth benchmarking and state public options. Her work has been published in Health Affairs, Frontiers in Health Services, the Harvard Journal on Legislation, and the New England Journal of Medicine, and has been highlighted in media outlets such as the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal.
She has successfully worked with policymakers and stakeholders in a variety of states by commenting on bill language, making presentations to various state agencies and officials, testifying as an expert witness at state legislative hearings, and participating in briefings and information sessions in California, Nevada, Connecticut, and Oregon.
