I
think that the disturbing trend of the government allowing businesses
to get too big by merging with and buying out competitors is now also
involving healthcare. Just as financial institutions are allowed to
merge and acquire smaller entities with little oversight, so too are
healthcare groups.
Banks
promoted that by becoming larger, they would be more efficient and
pass those cost savings on to their customers. I would argue that the
end result has been more reckless behavior, less flexibility and
higher customer fees.
I
am concerned because a similar situation is happening in healthcare.
Fewer and fewer entities (think IU Health and St. Vincents) are
controlling more and more of Indiana's hospitals and doctors
practices. This creates at least 3 potential problems.
The
first is the adverse effect on costs to the patient. Plastic surgery
and laser eye procedures have been the only things in healthcare that
have decreased in price over the years. This is because insurance is
generally not involved and there is great competition amongst many
providers.
The
second is that if these large institutions were to make bad financial
decisions resulting in insolvency , the government would have to bail
them out to prevent a catastrophic collapse of the healthcare system.
This policy is bad for consumers and bad for America.
The
third is the de facto creation of socialized medicine this causes. If
there are only 2 or 3 providers of healthcare and they all have to
follow the government's rules on Medicare and Medicaid, the
government is effectively running our nation's healthcare system.
Competition
is good and necessary for the healthcare (and every other) industry.
The harm from bigger and fewer healthcare entities vastly outweighs
the benefits.
