GT Newsletter | Competition Currents | October 2024

United States

A. Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

1. FTC staff opposes proposed Indiana hospital merger.

On Sept. 5, the FTC staff submitted a comment urging the Indiana Department of Health to deny an application seeking approval of a merger of Union Hospital, Inc. and Terre Haute Regional Hospital, L.P. (THRH), two Indiana hospitals.

Union Health and THRH seek to merge under a proposed certificate of public advantage (COPA), which shields the proposed merger from antitrust scrutiny. According to the FTC's comment, the combination would likely impose higher costs and could lead to worse health care outcomes for Indiana patients, as well as lower wage growth for hospital workers. In particular, the comment alleges that the parties are each other's closest competitors, and the merged entity would have a combined share of nearly 74% of all commercially insured inpatient hospital services in one county in Indiana (Vigo).