Antitrust officials eye allowing more physician-owned hospitals

Author: Sarah Owermohle

STAT D.C. Diagnosis

Some government antitrust regulators are hinting at their support for expanding physician-owned hospitals amid some congressional calls for the same – and amid increasing Biden administration scrutiny of health industry consolidation.

A pair of Biden officials from the Justice Department and the FTC wrote a paper with a few other experts arguing that the administration needs to roll back an Obamacare provision that keeps physician-owned hospitals from getting Medicare and Medicaid payments, in a bid to slow down consolidation and control prices. It’s an interesting stance for Biden folks to take, my colleague John Wilkerson writes, because Democrats have typically supported the effective ban on doctor-owned hospitals.

Republican lawmakers, however, have fought the limits for a long time. House Republicans last year included a repeal of the ban as part of their Healthy Future Task Force’s report, and on Wednesday, GOP Sens. James Lankford (Okla.) and Bill Cassidy (La.), both doctors, introduced a bill to rescind the ban.