HCA Healthcare and Steward Health Care System have abandoned their proposed deal involving five Utah hospitals, Becker’s reports. The decision comes less than two weeks after the Federal Trade Commission challenged the transaction.
The FTC unanimously voted to file lawsuits June 2 to block two separate hospital transactions, one involving Saint Peter’s Healthcare System and RWJBarnabas Health — two New Jersey health systems — and the other involving HCA and Steward. Saint Peter’s and RWJBarnabas called off their deal earlier this week.
“For the second time in a week, parties who proposed an anticompetitive hospital merger have called their deal off after the FTC filed a complaint to block the deal,” FTC Bureau of Competition Director Holly Vedova said in an agency statement. “This transaction, like the RWJBarnabas Health/Saint Peter’s transaction that was abandoned two days ago, should never have been proposed in the first place. This should be a lesson learned to hospital systems all over the country and their counsel: The FTC will not hesitate to take action in enforcing the antitrust laws to protect healthcare consumers who are faced with unlawful hospital consolidation.” Read more.
