51
Thought Leadership
Mega-Mergers
Between Health
Insurers: 5 Health
System CEOs Get
Candid
By Molly Gamble
F
ive CEOs from some of the largest health systems in the country
shared their opinions about health insurers and the consolida-
tion in the insurance sector.
e following comments were contributed to Becker's Hospital Review
via email under the condition of anonymity.
1. "e provider industry should vigorously oppose health plan
consolidation. In many states, the payers have a near monopoly.
e [government] has focused so much on provider consolida-
tions they have ignored the growing market concentration of the
payer community."
2. "I definitely see further consolidation of the commercial insur-
ance carrier industry as bad for consumers, employers and pro-
viders. e FTC and DOJ are biased against provider consolida-
tion because they see the lack of choice as anticompetitive and
anti-consumer. For the life of me I do not understand why they
seem to take 180-degree view of insurance industry consolida-
tion."
3. "I was quite surprised to [read] about the class-action law-
suit against the Blue Cross organization and its member plans.
I was happy to see this. Blue Cross functions as a sanctioned
monopoly vendor in many states and uses bullying practices in
order to maintain its monopolistic position."
4. "Especially with the recent Affordable Care Act court ruling, the
way is cleared for a push to consolidate among insurance carri-
ers. Providers will get pinched. Big question for me is whether
the pinch will lead to 1990s-type large commodity purchasing
and pricing or if a value-pricing, quality-conscious model will
really evolve."
5. "Insurer consolidation will continue as the regulators think buy-
ers should have more power than sellers. e balance of power
has permanently shied to the buy side." n
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