Health Care Antitrust Advisory: Rockford Rerun: FTC Sues to Stop Hospital Merger in Rockford, Illinois
11/28/2011
By Bruce D. Sokler, Christi J. Braun, and Robert G. Kidwell
The FTC filed both an administrative complaint and a district court complaint seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against OSF Healthcare System’s proposed acquisition of Rockford Health System. The FTC sees the merger as a rerun of the government’s successful challenge of a similar hospital merger in Rockford in 1989. While riding the coattails of those earlier decisions, the new complaint also challenges the acquisition’s impact on primary care physician services. The FTC alleges that, in Rockford, payors need two of the three hospitals in their networks and contends that the acquisition would eliminate the ability to hold prices down through playing the three hospitals off against one another.
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