The Justice Department Antitrust Division and Ohio attorney general on Friday filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against OhioHealth, believing that the company’s anticompetitive contract restrictions forced Ohio patients to pay higher prices for health care.
“Americans deserve low-cost, high-quality healthcare – not anticompetitive hospital system contracts that make healthcare less affordable,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a written statement. “Under President Trump’s leadership, this Department of Justice will continue taking legal action to protect consumers and drive down healthcare costs across America.”
The Justice Department filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, which seeks to enjoin OhioHealth, the largest healthcare system in central Ohio, from enforcing its allegedly anticompetitive contractual terms and allegedly suppressing healthcare competition. OhioHealth owns or manages 16 hospitals and outpatient facilities throughout the Buckeye State.
“Competition for healthcare is vital to all Americans,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Omeed A. Assefi of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division said in a statement.
“This lawsuit challenges anticompetitive contract restrictions that prevent consumers from choosing lower-cost health plans and severely limit consumers’ access to price information. These restrictions cause many Columbus residents to pay more for lower-quality healthcare. American families and consumers deserve better. I appreciate the partnership with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost to challenge these restrictions as we work together to open this important market to the very real benefits of open competition.”
The Justice Department explained why it believes OhioHealth is engaged in anticompetitive practices:
As alleged in the complaint, OhioHealth uses its market power to impose contractual restrictions that impede or completely prevent insurers from offering innovative and money-saving health-insurance plans or plan features. OhioHealth generally forces insurers to include OhioHealth in all of the networks for the commercial insurance products they offer, regardless of how OhioHealth’s prices compare to its competitors, preventing the development of budget-conscious plans in the Columbus area. Without these lower cost and innovative plan options that empower patients to save money by selecting lower-cost providers who still provide high-quality care, patients and employers are faced with fewer health plan choices and higher costs.
The Justice Department unveiled its antitrust lawsuit against OhioHealth after Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, claimed that Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater’s departure may lead to less antitrust enforcement at the Justice Department.
She said in mid-February, “Instead, it appears that Justice Department leadership is undermining dedicated antitrust enforcers work to protect consumers and small businesses.”
The Justice Department lawsuit follows in the steps of a landmark Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settlement with Express Scripts, which resolves a FTC lawsuit that alleged that the company conduct resulted in artificially higher inflated insulin drug prices.
“The settlement requires ESI [Express Scripts] to adopt fundamental changes to its business practices that increase transparency, are expected to drive down patients’ out-of-pocket costs for drugs like insulin by up to $7 billion over 10 years, bring millions of dollars in new revenue to community pharmacies each year, and advance the Trump Administration’s key healthcare priorities,” a press release for the FTC stated.
“The FTC’s settlement with Express Scripts is a clear testament to the Trump-Vance FTC’s focus on lowering healthcare costs for American patients,” said FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson.
“The FTC’s settlement with ESI will end its business practices that have kept drug prices high, ultimately providing meaningful financial relief to American patients who depend on ESI to access life-sustaining prescription drugs as well as community pharmacies who will see new revenues each year and relief from being squeezed,” Ferguson continued. “It also delivers significant wins for the broader Trump-Vance healthcare agenda, including reshoring major portions of ESI’s business, ensuring regulatory compliance with price transparency laws, requiring disclosures of kickbacks to brokers, and paving the way for Americans to participate fully in TrumpRx.”