Consolidation in health insurance markets can injure hospitals and doctors by creating buyer-side market power that can force providers to accept below-market prices, limit patients’ access to care, and reduce innovation in health care financing and delivery. In two recent lawsuits challenging the proposed Anthem/Cigna and Aetna/Humana mergers, the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice (“DOJ”) reaffirmed that antitrust law needs to protect providers from monopsony, not just protect insurance buyers from monopoly.

The suits will allow the DOJ and the courts to further develop the legal and factual basis for challenging insurance company mergers on a monopsony theory, which may help protect providers in these and future cases.