Competition In Healthcare

Competition in health care markets benefits consumers because it helps contain costs, improve quality, and encourage innovation. The Federal Trade Commission's job as a law enforcer is to stop firms from engaging in anticompetitive conduct that harms consumers. The agency also provides guidance to market participants - including physicians and other health professionals, hospitals and other institutional providers, pharmaceutical companies and other sellers of health care products, and insurers - to help them comply with the nation's antitrust laws.
Additionally, the Commission and its staff undertake a variety of other activities to promote competition in health care. One key area is research and reports on competition issues in health care
and, in the past, has included such matters as: empirical studies of generic drug entry, contact lens sales, and mail order pharmacies; economic analyses of the effects of mergers involving non-profit hospitals and of state “any willing provider laws; and a series of public hearings in 2003 on a wide range of issues in health care.
Another broad area of activity is competition advocacy. Aside from speeches to market participants, the FTC and its staff advise federal and state governmental bodies on competition issues in health care, in an effort to provide policymakers with a sound basis for assessing the implications for competition and consumers of proposed legislative or regulatory actions.

The important of competition of the firm is that in the healthcare markets it contain a lot of cost and can be improve to benefits the consumers. And we also know that the society benefit this industry because it is high in demand. We need healthcare for me and everyone else without that how would we cure ourselves if we don't know it take to heal people. I personality know that god is a healer but there are people place on earth that we can see in the nature that have the knowledge and tell us what we can do far as health issue which is everyone in the healthcare. The healthcare has lots of technology and still change every day. You always will find something new in the health care markets. (Angela Wilkerson 2011)
To me for a perspective merger depending on what the hospitals actually conducting in health care. But if a hospital conducts the right perspectives i.e. conducting health care on a broad spectrum for everyone’s needs no patient would have to travel miles and miles to be treated for such. (Kemosi Evans 2011)
The Health Care Industry is a perfect merger for hospitals, pharmacies, insurance companies and etc.
Of course with any merger, competition and its impact has to be taken into consideration. The biggest competition with the healthcare industry is the FTC (Federal Trade Commission), they have the ability to "cease and desist" the merger. Over the years the FTC has ceased and desisted many mergers between the health care industry and hospitals mainly because of the affect the merger has had on the increase in prescription drug prices. (Timecia Brown 2011)

The most common technologies used by hospitals are wheel chairs, hospital beds, operating tables, delivery beds, examination tables, transfer trolleys, operating lights, and etc. From the firms' point of view, some of the incentives to consolidate within the healthcare industry are that it will decrease the amount of competition such as non-profit hospitals and etc. These are just a few descriptions of the healthcare industry and the firms. (Timecia Brown 2011)
Actions in Pharmaceutical Services contain summaries of more than 200 public antitrust actions that the Commission has taken involving competition enforcement in health care markets. The Overviews are categorized by antitrust issue, and discuss complaints and settlement orders, amicus briefs, and industry guidance
statements.
The Federal Trade Commission today announced that it will hold two public workshops and roundtables this fall to examine emerging health care competition and consumer protection issues. The events, which will be held in Washington, DC, will focus on two distinct areas in which competition and consumer protection policies are implicated: 1) competition provided by developing an abbreviated regulatory pathway for follow-on biologic drugs; and 2) competition among health care providers based on quality information. The specific dates of the events, along with detailed agendas for each, will be announced in the near future.
Since the issuance in 2004 of the joint FTC/Department of Justice report, “Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition,” the importance of issues arising from the application of competition and consumer protection law to health care has increased significantly.
The FTC plays an important role in various health care markets through its mission of maintaining competition and protecting consumers. Accordingly, the Commission is holding these public events to gather information about the impact on the potential marketplace of different ways to structure an abbreviated regulatory approval pathway for follow-on biologic drugs. The Commission also seeks to explore further the competitive significance of qualitative health care information from the purchasers’
viewpoint.
The Federal Trade Commission looks out for the welfare of every individual when it comes down to heal care provisions.
From what I do know is that there has not been no competition between hospitals. Because there are people’s lives that are at risk. I feel that the hospitals would not want to put the patients at risk and their good name at risk. The Federal Trade Commission today issued its final opinion and order to restore the competition that was lost when Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Corporation (ENH) in suburban Chicago, Illinois, acquired its competitor, Highland Park Hospital. The order sets out the specific requirements for the remedy the Commission ordered in its August 2007 liability decision.
In 2007, the Commission affirmed an October 2005 ruling by an administrative law judge that found that ENH’s acquisition of Highland Park Hospital was anticompetitive and violated federal antitrust law. The Commission’s remedy required ENH to establish separate, independent negotiating teams “to allow MCOs [managed care organizations] to negotiate separately again for those competing hospitals, thus re-injecting competition between them for the business of MCOs.” The Commission noted that it lacked sufficiently detailed information about ENH’s contract negotiations to craft a precise order and asked ENH to submit a detailed proposal to implement the Commission’s order. (Claudia Bourne Farrell 2008)
There have been quite a few health care reforms and mergers between clinics and hospitals. By the statement that I have found I have been proven wrong on the competition in clinical care.

Reference:
http://www.ftc.gov/bc/mergers.shtm