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Health Law and Policy

1999

Wayne State University

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Questioning Traditional Antitrust Presumptions: Price And Non-Price Competition In Hospital Markets, Peter J. Hammer Jul 1999

Questioning Traditional Antitrust Presumptions: Price And Non-Price Competition In Hospital Markets, Peter J. Hammer

Law Faculty Research Publications

Hospital mergers challenge basic assumptions about the effects of market power in the health care industry. Antitrust courts have struggled with claims that hospital mergers may in fact reduce costs and lower prices. This Article assesses the validity of these economic claims in the context of an industry that has undergone radical transformations in recent years. The Article also explores how such arguments should be treated as a matter of antitrust doctrine in an area of the law that relies heavily on market share presumptions and rule-based decision making. The Article contends that courts should employ a total welfare standard …


Competing On Quality Of Care: The Need To Develop A Competition Policy For Health Care Markets, William M. Sage, Peter J. Hammer Jul 1999

Competing On Quality Of Care: The Need To Develop A Competition Policy For Health Care Markets, William M. Sage, Peter J. Hammer

Law Faculty Research Publications

As American health care moves from a professionally dominated to a marketdominated model, concerns have been voiced that competition, once unleashed, will focus on price to the detriment of quality. Although quality has been extensively analyzed in health services research, the role of quality in competition policy has not been elucidated. While economists may theorize about non-price competition, courts in antitrust cases often follow simpler models of competition based on price and output, either ignoring quality as a competitive dimension or assuming that it will occur in tandem with price competition. This unsystematic approach is inadequate for the formulation of …