Healthcare Industry Consolidation: Any Consumer Benefits?

South Florida insurance companies and large hospital chains recorded healthy profits and acquired rival companies in an attempt to grow bigger in 2018, a new analysis found, accelerating a race to gain leverage in healthcare pricing negotiations.

But consumer advocates warn that whatever savings the healthcare monoliths find are unlikely to be passed down to patients.

Allan Baumgarten, who authored the recently released 2019 Florida Health Market Review, said the insurance companies and hospital chains are each seeking to achieve dominance.

“You have both health plans and hospital systems in a sense each trying to gain market strength and match the market strength of the other one,” he said.

“It’s kind of a cyclical process. One makes that decision and then the other says, ‘Well, we have to get bigger as well.’