Health Care Competition Law in the Shadow of State Action: Minimizing MACs
University of Illinois College of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 16-31
GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 2016-42
27 Pages Posted: 27 Aug 2016 Last revised: 29 Oct 2016
Date Written: August 25, 2016
Abstract
How should we go about reconciling competition and consumer protection in health care, given the long shadow cast by the state action doctrine? We consider that issue, using a case study drawn from an obscure corner of the pharmaceutical reimbursement market to motivate and inform our analysis. We show how the balance between competition and consumer protection has been distorted by the political economy of health care regulation – compounded by the extension of the state action doctrine far past its defensible borders. If anything, considerations of political economy argue for much greater skepticism about the utility of regulation – and of the state action doctrine – in the health care space.
Keywords: health care, competition, antitrust, state action, pharmaceuticals, MAC
JEL Classification: K00, K21, K23, L44
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation