Changing antitrust law in this manner would hinder competition and increase costs.

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Robert Pitofsky testified before the House Judiciary Committee that this legislation "would merely grant [providers] broad immunity to present a ‘united front' when negotiating price and other terms of dealing with health plans, without any efficiency benefits for consumers or any regulatory oversight to safeguard the public interest."

The legislation would allow providers to engage actively and legally in pricefixing.  Under the guise of "quality" and "competition," providers could justify harmful anticompetitive activities, such as boycotting.

Aggregating market power in this way could well make it harder for small, innovative health networks to enter or compete in the market, thus depriving consumers of another choice and of the benefits of lower costs.

As it stands, the proposed legislation would free providers from having to join labor organizations or to form legitimate business ventures.  Instead, they would gain the competitive advantage of remaining independent while operating collectively.

Changing the antitrust law is not necessary.

Health care providers who are concerned about health care quality and competition already may create joint ventures and bargain collectively with health plans through those ventures.

The 1996 FTC guidelines allow – even encourage – such arrangements and negotiations to proceed if the joint pricesetting arrangement passes the "rule of reason" standard.  Under the "rule of reason," the group must be sufficiently integrated and the anticompetitive effects of these joint negotiations do not outweigh consumer benefits, such as increased efficiency.

This antitrust exemption would represent a radical departure from current labor law standards.

The labor law differentiates between "employees" and "independent contractors."

Current law already extends a labor exemption from antitrust law for bona fide labor organizations and covers health care providers within the employeremployee context.

The relationship between selfemployed health care providers and health plans differs markedly from that between an employee and employer.

The NLRB recognized this difference in rejecting the claim of one group of physicians, pointing out that only a minority of the doctors' incomes come from a health plan and only a minority of their time is spent serving that plan's patients.