Editor’s Note:  CRE will be closely following this case.  Lawsuits which potentially expose “the health care system to hundreds of millions of dollars in damages” threaten health care prices for all Americans.

From: Crain’s Chicago Business

By  Andrew L. Wang

A federal judge has granted class-action status to an antitrust lawsuit challenging NorthShore University HealthSystem’s acquisition of Highland Park Hospital, a ruling that potentially exposes the health care system to hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for allegedly jacking up prices.

Editor’s Note:  Below is yet another example of why concerns about hospital clout lack a basis in facts.

From: Financial Times

New Affordable Care US health plans will exclude top hospitals

By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington

Americans who are buying insurance plans over online exchanges, under what is known as Obamacare, will have limited access to some of the nation’s leading hospitals, including two world-renowned cancer centres.

Editor’s Note: The following is yet another article that assumes that hospital consolidation, undertaken to reduce costs, is responsible for rising hospital prices without any demonstration of causality. 

From: SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle

‘Convoluted’ hospital pricing under scrutiny

Andrew S. Ross

Making the front page of the New York Times can be a cause for congratulation. Not so, unfortunately, for California Pacific Medical Center.

In a lead story which ran over three pages Tuesday, the center emerges as a prime example of what the Times calls “convoluted hospital pricing.” In other words, charging $2,229 for stitching up a patient’s knee at its Pacific Heights campus in San Francisco, $32,901 for a heart X-ray and $20 for a codeine pill, according to CPMC records.

From: Times-Picayune/NOLA.com

By Ben Myers, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

As the Jefferson Parish Council nears a decision of which private company will operate East Jefferson General Hospital and West Jefferson Medical Center, the two leading competitors for the deal are picking apart each other’s proposal in hopes of gaining an advantage. The selection has been on hold for three months since the two hospital boards failed to agree on an operator: East Jefferson prefers Hospital Corp. of America, and West Jefferson endorses Louisiana Children’s Medical Center.