Does trend toward consolidation risk health care cost controls?

The Fiscal Times: Monopolies Threaten Health Care Cost Controls
Beyond the legal challenges, a major new hurdle is emerging for the health care reform law. Recent studies show that the major players in the health care marketplace - insurers, hospitals and physician practices - are consolidating, which increases the likelihood they will collude on prices charged to employers and to consumers and defeat cost control measures in the law. Government officials are already grappling with the issue as they move to implement one of the signature cost control elements of reform - the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) (Goozner, 2/3).

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This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.