Proposed Healthcare Merger a Charade?

Strengthening patient choices of hospitals and physicians through competition is imperative. Promoting cost and quality transparency so employers, consumers and policymakers have access to this meaningful information is equally important.

With this in mind, I wrote the following Op-Ed that was published by the Des Moines Register on September 14.

The proposed merger between two major Midwestern hospital systems, Sanford Health and UnityPoint Health, is deeply troublesome for two key reasons – cost and health outcomes.

For 20 years, I have researched employee benefits in Iowa, including healthcare costs paid by employers and their employees. Since 1999, Iowa employer premiums have skyrocketed by 240 percent (single) and 251 percent (family). Today’s annual Iowa family premium is about $20,000. In 10 years, assuming a five-year average increase of 7.6 percent and no benefit changes are made, the family premium growth could compound to $40,596 (see graphic below).

Over this same 20-year period, Iowa health plan deductibles have increased dramatically, with the average family deductible reaching almost $4,000, with no relief in sight.

Despite the elevated costs paid by Iowans, the level of care received is equally troublesome. The care Iowans receive for the egregious prices we pay suggests we are not receiving commensurate value. With a scarcity of patient information on Iowa health outcomes, we performed the first-of-its-kind study on Iowans’ experiences with the medical care they received – specifically regarding medical errors.

The results we found were stunning. One-fifth of randomly-surveyed Iowans in 2017 indicated they or someone close to them experienced a medical error while seeking care during the previous five years. Of those, 60 percent indicated the error had ‘serious health consequences’ while another 23 percent reported ‘minor health consequences.’ Iowans also incurred serious financial consequences, as a result.

On the surface, the Sanford-UnityPoint proposed merger is touted to be a win-win for these two regional non-profit giants and for the payers of care, including the patients covered in the respective markets. We’re led to believe that such mergers will broaden “access to care” and “increase efficiency” which will help “lower costs and improve care.” These symbiotic relationships generated by mergers may sound intuitive, even for those who regulate anticompetitive business practices, such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general.

But the devil is in the details, and substantiated results of these details show a clearly different, and problematic story that must become public.

The proposed Sanford-UnityPoint merger would amass 76 hospitals, outpatient and long-term-care services across 26 states – employing 2,600 physicians and 83,000 staff. It would be among the top 15 largest nonprofit health systems in the U.S. and have more than $11 billion in combined operating revenue. In 2018, the combined operating income of both non-profit organizations was nearing $213 million.

Nationally, hospital and health system mergers and acquisitions have increased from 38 in 2003 to 115 in 2017. Hospitals account for nearly 33 percent of all healthcare spending – the largest portion of overall health expenditures in the U.S.  Studies have shown that consolidation is more about enhancing bargaining power that health providers have with payers, such as insurance companies and self-funded employers – and less about integration to reduce costs and provide better, safer care.

Provider consolidation serves as a ploy – leveraging its bargaining prowess with third-party payers to ensure favorable prices – resulting in hefty profits for additional acquisitions. Larger, more market-concentrated hospital systems eventually hold payors hostage by refusing to participate in the covered network of providers unless they receive favorable price increases.

Two renowned experts on this subject, Drs. Martin Gaynor and Robert Town, have frequently found that hospital mergers in concentrated markets result in significant price increases, most exceeding 20 percent. In Iowa, Sanford and UnityPoint would most likely seek to leverage a higher-fee reimbursement from private payers which would only increase the 10-year premium projection mentioned earlier. This behavior is detrimental to the well-being of most Iowans and those insured in other areas under this merger’s footprint.

Our antitrust policies must hold hospital market power in check. Attorney General Tom Miller has a long history of using anti-trust laws to protect Iowans – from fighting big tobacco to reigning in Google. Governor Kim Reynolds has made access to rural health care one of her central issues. Both Governor Reynolds and Attorney General Miller must review this merger to ensure that Iowans won’t pay more for less.

Without this, Iowans and others will continue to pay dearly by allowing this charade to continue.

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