Commission forms Healthcare Task Force as markets continue to become more concentrated.
The Federal Trade Commission has announced the creation of a new Healthcare Task Force, signaling what appears to be a renewed—and more formalized—agency focus on competition and consumer protection across the healthcare sector. While the announcement comes under FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson, healthcare competition was also a priority during the Biden administration under former Chair Lina Khan, suggesting more continuity than departure in this area of enforcement.
In a memorandum issued on March 20, Chairman Ferguson directed staff from across the agency—including the Bureaus of Competition, Consumer Protection, and Economics, along with the Office of Policy Planning and the Office of Technology—to form the Healthcare Task Force. The initiative is designed to bring a coordinated, agency‑wide approach to healthcare enforcement and advocacy, with the stated goal of protecting patients, healthcare workers, and taxpayers.
According to the memorandum, the Healthcare Task Force will:
- Lead targeted enforcement and advocacy initiatives focused on key priorities
- Devise coordinated, agency‑wide strategies for investigations
- Take a proactive approach to identifying amicus and statements‑of‑interest opportunities
- Identify emerging issues and new priority areas for enforcement and advocacy
The Task Force is also expected to expand beyond the FTC, seeking collaboration with other federal agencies and law‑enforcement partners, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice.
Chairman Ferguson framed the initiative as part of the Commission’s broader mandate to promote “a more competitive, innovative, affordable, and higher quality healthcare system,” citing direction from President Trump’s executive order. At the same time, the substance of recent enforcement actions underscores that healthcare competition has remained a consistent focus across administrations.
Recent FTC Healthcare Enforcement Actions
Over the past year, the FTC has pointed to several enforcement outcomes as evidence of its active role in healthcare markets, including:
- A settlement with Express Scripts, Inc. and affiliated entities requiring changes to business practices intended to increase transparency and lower patients’ out‑of‑pocket drug costs—particularly for insulin—by as much as $7 billion over ten years, the Commission claims.
- A successful challenge to Edwards Lifesciences’ proposed acquisition of JenaValve Technology, preserving competition in the development of specialized heart‑valve devices.
- The abandonment of Alcon’s proposed acquisition of LENSAR, preserving competition in femtosecond laser‑assisted cataract surgery technology.
- $145 million in consumer redress from companies alleged to have misled consumers seeking health insurance into purchasing indemnity, telemedicine, and health‑discount plans.
- Enforcement actions against substance‑abuse treatment facilities that allegedly used deceptive telemarketing practices, resulting in $2.4 million in consumer redress, according to the FTC.
Alcon–LENSAR: Competition on Price and Innovation
The FTC’s scrutiny of healthcare mergers was highlighted again by Alcon’s decision to abandon its proposed acquisition of LENSAR. The Commission said the deal raised “substantial competitive concerns” because it would have combined the two most significant competitors in the market for femtosecond laser systems used in cataract surgery.
Alcon and LENSAR were engaged in an active price competition that benefited physicians and patients, while also driving innovation in laser‑assisted cataract surgery technology. The FTC said the merger threatened those competitive dynamics, prompting the companies to walk away rather than face litigation.
Edwards–JenaValve: Preserving Pipeline Competition
The FTC’s challenge to Edwards Lifesciences’ proposed $945 million acquisition of JenaValve Technology further illustrates the agency’s focus on competition at the innovation stage, not merely in fully commercialized markets.
As previously reported on the Mogin Law Blog, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted the FTC’s request for a preliminary injunction in January 2026, temporarily blocking the transaction while the agency proceeds with its administrative case. The FTC argues that the deal would have eliminated competition between the only two firms developing AR‑specific transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR‑AR) devices in U.S. clinical trials.
The Commission’s complaint emphasizes that no TAVR‑AR device is currently FDA‑approved and that preserving rivalry during the development phase is critical to innovation, quality, and future patient access. By framing the market around dedicated AR‑specific devices—and excluding surgical alternatives, off‑label use, and stenosis‑focused TAVR systems—the FTC has advanced a narrow but innovation‑centered theory of harm.
Is scrutiny of healthcare markets warranted?
Academic research and government analysis make it clear: U.S. healthcare markets have become significantly more concentrated during the past two decades, both system‑wide and within individual segments such as hospitals, physician practices, insurers, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare services. Studies reviewed by the Department of Health and Human Services, the FTC, and independent economists consistently find that consolidation has reduced competitive alternatives in many markets, often with measurable effects on prices and access.
Hospital Markets: Highly Concentrated, Higher Prices
Hospital consolidation is among the most studied areas of the healthcare system. Research by economists Zack Cooper and Martin Gaynor finds that roughly 80–90% of U.S. hospital markets are “highly concentrated” under DOJ–FTC merger guidelines, typically dominated by one to three systems. Empirical studies repeatedly show that mergers in these markets are associated with higher commercial prices, with little evidence of corresponding improvements in quality, reinforcing longstanding antitrust concerns about hospital‑to‑hospital consolidation.
Physician Practices and Vertical Integration
Physician markets have consolidated rapidly, largely through hospital acquisition of physician practices and, more recently, private‑equity investment. A recent Government Accountability Office review found that nearly half of U.S. physicians are now employed by or affiliated with hospital systems, up sharply from a decade earlier. The GAO and Kaiser Family Foundation report that this form of vertical integration is frequently associated with higher prices for physician services, even where care delivery remains unchanged.
Health Insurance, PBMs, and Distribution Oligopolies
Concentration is especially pronounced in health insurance and pharmaceutical distribution. According to the American Medical Association, 95% of U.S. commercial health‑insurance markets are highly concentrated, with a single insurer holding at least half the market share in many metropolitan areas. Drug distribution is similarly concentrated, with three firms controlling more than 90% of wholesale pharmaceutical distribution, creating an oligopolistic structure that has drawn increasing regulatory scrutiny.
Pharmaceuticals and R&D: Concentration Along the Supply Chain
While pharmaceutical manufacturing remains competitive in some therapeutic areas, concentration increases sharply in specialty drugs, biologics, and commercialization. Industry analyses by IQVIA and Deloitte show that R&D spending and late‑stage pipelines are increasingly concentrated among a small number of large biopharma firms, even as early‑stage innovation often originates with smaller companies later acquired through M&A. This dynamic has heightened antitrust scrutiny of mergers that eliminate pipeline competition, not just existing product overlap.
Why This Research Matters for FTC Enforcement
Taken together, this research provides a strong empirical foundation for the FTC’s sustained focus on healthcare competition across administrations. Recent merger challenges reflect an enforcement strategy informed by decades of evidence showing that consolidation can raise prices, weaken innovation incentives, and limit future patient choice, particularly in markets with high regulatory barriers to entry. The Healthcare Task Force appears aimed at embedding this evidence‑based approach across the agency’s enforcement and policy functions.
Do governmental task forces work?
Government task forces have a mixed track record, and their effectiveness depends less on the label than on what follows. Standing up a task force does not create new legal authority, and on its own it does not guarantee tougher enforcement. In practice, task forces tend to be most effective when they streamline coordination among agencies that already have enforcement power, accelerate case selection, and embed economic and technical expertise directly into active investigations. They are least effective when they function primarily as signaling devices—producing reports, holding meetings, and issuing press releases without measurable enforcement outcomes. The FTC’s Healthcare Task Force should therefore be judged not by its creation, but by whether it translates into sustained merger challenges, conduct cases, and remedies that preserve competition in healthcare markets over time.
Edited by Tom Hagy, Editor‑in‑Chief, Mogin Law Blog.
Additional reading:
- FTC Presses Case for Deeper Market Info from Merging Companies
- Hyperscalers in Healthcare & Life Sciences
- Judge Clears PE Firm’s $627M Acquisition of Medical Device Firm, a Setback for the FTC
- Court Halts Merger of Only Firms Developing Life-Saving Medical Device