Final week the Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) issued a press launch highlighting latest and forthcoming actions by the FTC, Division of Justice (DOJ), and the Division of Well being and Human Companies (HHS), which they are saying will additional promote competitors, thereby decreasing prices and rising the standard of care within the U.S. well being care market. Along with highlighting latest actions by every of the companies (e.g., the FTC’s proposed non-compete rule), the discharge states that the three companies are coming into into new partnerships to extend interagency cooperation and advance a “whole-of-government” strategy to guard well being care competitors, together with:

• A joint Request for Info issued by the three companies in search of enter into how private-equity companies and different firms’ “management of well being care” impacts People.
• A partnership between the three companies to share knowledge that can “assist establish probably anticompetitive transactions which may in any other case evade evaluate.” This might result in scrutiny of transactions that aren’t reportable underneath the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act.
• The creation and appointment of a brand new “Counsel for Well being Care” at every company that can lead interagency and coverage efforts on well being care competitors.
• The continuation of a partnership between the DOJ and HHS’s Workplace of the Inspector Common, memorialized late final yr, that goals to extend coordination between the DOJ and HHS OIG to make use of the antitrust legal guidelines and OIG’s exclusion authorities to strengthen enforcement of federal legislation.

Within the launch FTC Chair Lina Khan, Assistant Lawyer Common Jonathan Kanter of the DOJ Antitrust Division, and Secretary Xavier Becerra every affirm their dedication to sustaining competitors in well being care markets and making well being care extra reasonably priced and accessible for People.

This serves as yet one more reminder that well being care continues to be a precedence for not simply antitrust enforcers, however for the federal authorities writ massive, and that corporations within the well being care business ought to count on continued or elevated scrutiny from federal enforcement companies.