Thursday, April 8, 2021
Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
On March 1, 2021, the FTC, suffering its first loss in a hospital merger challenge since 2016, voted 4-0 to end its effort to stop the proposed $599 million merger of Philadelphia-area health care systems Jefferson Health and Albert Einstein Healthcare Network. The FTC’s decision comes about a month and a half after the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office dropped out of the joint challenge.
The FTC challenged the merger on the basis that it would hurt competition in the Philadelphia-area health care market, and after a defeat at the district court, told the appellate court that the judge had applied “faulty economic reasoning.” The FTC alleged that a combined network would control over 60% of the market for inpatient general acute care services in and around North Philadelphia and at least 45% of the market for those services in and around Montgomery County. The FTC alleged that the defendants also control