Antitrust and health care services

• Date: 01 June 1984
• Published date: 01 June 1984
• Author: Ray V. Hartwell
• DOI: 10.1177/0003603X8402900201
• Subject Matter: Article

The

Antitrust

Bulletin/Summer 1984

Antitrust and health care services

BY RAY

V.

HARTWELL, III,*GUEST EDITOR

163

Little more than a decade ago, there were few circumstances in

which the antitrust laws might be applied to providers

of

health

care services. In the early 1970s, a variety

of

robust defenses and

exemptions shielded health care providers from antitrust attack.

As a result, physicians, hospital administrators, and other health

care professionals seldom needed the services

of

antitrust lawyers.

Over the past ten years, the barriers to antitrust scrutiny of

the health care industry have fallen like so many dominoes. Each

of

the once reliable

defenses-state

action, learned professions,

interstate commerce, the business

of

insurance, and implied

repeal-has

been substantially narrowed if not eliminated. At the

same time, deregulation and cost-containment initiatives have

brought to health care markets a new emphasis on competition

and market incentives. These developments have precipitated

sweeping changes in the marketplace, and have confronted anti-

trust lawyers and their health care clients with an array

of

new

and challenging problems.**

This special issue

of

The Antitrust Bulletin is devoted to the

subject

of

antitrust and health care services. The issue contains

Partner

in the firm

of

Hunton &Williams, Richmond, Virginia.

The health care "industry" is not the only one to be affected by

deregulation and recent narrowing

of

traditional antitrust defenses. For

acollection

of

articles on the antitrust implications

of

deregulation, see

the Spring 1983 issue

of

The Antitrust Bulletin.

©1984 by Federal Legal Publications. Inc.