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Exclusive contracting talking points
"Limited antitrust relief for all health care professionals, not a sweeping exemption"
H.R. 1304, the “Quality Health Care Coalition Act of 1999” Limited Antitrust Relief For All Health Care Professionals - Not a Sweeping Exemption
H. R. 1304 would benefit all health care professionals.
All health care professionals would be able to negotiate jointly with large powerful health plans. However, some health professionals are concerned that H.R. 1304, Representative Tom Campbell’s “Quality Health Care Coalition Act of 1999,” would allow other health care professionals to harm them by negotiating to exclude them from health plans. This is not the case.
H. R. 1304 would not change the antitrust laws regarding exclusive agreements. Under current antitrust laws, exclusive agreements are analyzed using the “Rule of Reason.”
A main goal of the antitrust laws is to protect competition. Whether an agreement violates antitrust law depends in large part on whether the agreement unreasonably restrains trade (or unreasonably harms competition). In considering whether there has been unreasonable harm to competition, exclusive agreements are analyzed using the rule of reason. That means the potential competitive benefits of the agreement, if any, are evaluated and balanced against alleged harm to competition. In doing so, many relevant factors must considered, such as the geographic and product markets involved, the market power of the persons involved in the agreement and the harm, if any, to the competitors in the market. For instance, an exclusive contract may harm competition unreasonably if a significant portion of health care professionals that provide the same type of services are “frozen out” of the market.
The antitrust laws apply to all health care professionals in the same manner. H. R. 1304 would not change this.
This means that even those health care professionals who are concerned about exclusive contracting agreements have the ability to negotiate such contracts with health plans and would be subject to the same legal analysis under the law.
Amendments proposed by some health care professionals would provide them with new advantages under the law, beyond the scope of H. R. 1304.
Some health care professionals would like to add language that would make some agreements automatically illegal without any analysis of the markets, potential benefits or alleged harm. This would work to eliminate agreements that would be beneficial to patient care or health care competition that would otherwise be legal or beneficial in certain markets. This would clearly place concern for health care professionals before patient care.
H. R. 1304 is not a sweeping exemption.
It is about negotiations with health plans, not excluding health care professionals.
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Published Mar 19 2000
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