About antitrust
Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter Announces Task Force on Health Care Monopolies and Collusion “The Justice Department today announced the formation of the Antitrust Division’s Task Force on Health Care Monopolies and Collusion (HCMC). The HCMC will guide the division’s enforcement strategy and policy approach in health care, including by facilitating policy advocacy, investigations and, where warranted, civil and criminal enforcement in health care markets…
The HCMC will consider widespread competition concerns shared by patients, health care professionals, businesses and entrepreneurs, including issues regarding payer-provider consolidation, serial acquisitions, labor and quality of care, medical billing, health care IT services, access to and misuse of health care data and more. The HCMC will bring together civil and criminal prosecutors, economists, health care industry experts, technologists, data scientists, investigators and policy advisors from across the division’s Civil, Criminal, Litigation and Policy Programs, and the Expert Analysis Group, to identify and address pressing antitrust problems in health care markets.”
About health insurance/insurers
Community Health Systems adds another antitrust lawsuit to MultiPlan's collection “Community Health Systems is the latest health system to allege that MultiPlan’s data-driven claims repricing business meets the bar for antitrust violation.
The public for-profit system filed a lawsuit in a New York federal court Wednesday, following in the wake of similar litigation launched last year by AdventHealth and just a few weeks ago by Allegiance Health Management.
Though the new lawsuit does not name major health insurers as co-defendants, CVS Health’s Aetna, Elevance Health, Centene Corporation, Cigna, Health Care Service Corporation, UnitedHealth Group and Humana are highlighted as “co-conspirators” in the “MultiPlan Cartel,” which CHS wrote “includes virtually all of the major healthcare insurance payors in the United States.”
UnitedHealth offers to divest 100 locations in Amedisys deal: Report “UnitedHealth Group and Amedisys plan to divest more than 100 clinic locations to make its proposed acquisition more palatable to regulators, Capitol Forum reported.
About hospitals and healthcare systems
US Hospital Service Availability and New 340B Program Participation “This longitudinal observational study including 2152 general acute care hospitals found that public hospitals were significantly more likely to sustain unprofitable services after 340B participation, but there was not a meaningful association between 340B participation and service offerings at nonprofit hospitals, except for oncologic services.”
About pharma
KFF Health Tracking Poll May 2024: The Public’s Use and Views of GLP-1 Drugs “The latest KFF Health Tracking Poll finds that about one in eight adults (12%) say they have ever taken a GLP-1 agonist – an increasingly popular class of prescription drugs used for weight loss and to treat diabetes or prevent heart attacks or strokes for adults with heart disease – including 6% who say they are currently taking such a drug. The share who report ever taking these drugs rises to four in ten (43%) among adults who have been told by a doctor that they have diabetes, a quarter who have been told they have heart disease, and one in five (22%) who have been told by a doctor that they are overweight or obese in the past five years. Public awareness of GLP-1 drugs has increased in the past year, with about one-third (32%) of adults now saying they have heard ‘a lot’ about these drugs, up from 19% in July 2023.”
Pfizer agrees to settle more than 10,000 Zantac cancer suits “Pfizer Inc. has agreed to settle more than 10,000 cases accusing it of hiding the cancer risks of its Zantac heartburn drug, according to people familiar with the deal, the biggest of the litigation.
The agreements cover cases in state courts across the US but don’t completely resolve the company’s exposure to Zantac claims, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the settlement publicly. Financial details of the accords weren’t immediately available.
The deal is likely to reassure investors, who have seen other Zantac makers, including GSK Plc and Sanofi, sign settlements. Concerns about the drugmakers’ exposure to Zantac suits helped wipe out about $45 billion in combined market value in the summer of 2022. The shares have since recovered and have risen on news of the earlier deals.”
About the public’s health
Prevalence of Cardiovascular-Kidney-Metabolic [CKM] Syndrome Stages in US Adults, 2011-2020 “Almost 90% of US adults met criteria for CKM syndrome (stage 1 or higher) and 15% met criteria for advanced stages, neither of which improved between 2011 and 2020. The lack of progress, in part, may reflect concomitant improvement and worsening of different risk factors over time.2,5 Substantial between-subgroup differences in advanced stages were observed, with older age, men, and Black adults at increased risk.”
About healthcare IT
White House to push cybersecurity standards on hospitals “In parallel to pushing out rules for hospital cybersecurity, the Biden administration intends to offer free training to 1,400 small, rural hospitals across the country, according to Neuberger. She said the training will become available ‘in the next few weeks.’”
About healthcare personnel
Medical residents are increasingly avoiding states with abortion restrictions “Fourteen states, primarily in the Midwest and South, have banned nearly all abortions. The new analysis by the AAMC—a preliminary copy of which was exclusively reviewed by KFF Health News before its public release—found that the number of applicants to residency programs in states with near-total abortion bans declined by 4.2%, compared with a 0.6% drop in states where abortion remains legal.
Notably, the AAMC’s findings illuminate the broader problems abortion bans can create for a state’s medical community, particularly in an era of provider shortages: The organization tracked a larger decrease in interest in residencies in states with abortion restrictions not only among those in specialties most likely to treat pregnant patients, like OB-GYNs and emergency room doctors, but also among aspiring doctors in other specialties.”
Fewer nurses intend to leave healthcare, surveys suggest “AMN Healthcare's Nurses in 2024 report, a survey of 1,155 nurses, found that only 35% of nurses plan to change jobs and about 20% said they are optimistic that their work will improve this year. A February report by AMN also found 31% of nursing leaders are considering leaving their jobs.”