UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20580
May 13, 1999
The Honorable Rene O. Oliveira
Texas House of Representatives
P.O. Box 2910
Austin, Texas 78768-2910
Dear Representative Oliveira:
The Bureau of Competition of the Federal Trade Commission is pleased to respond to your request, dated May 5, 1999, for comment on Senate Bill 1468, "An Act Relating to the Regulation of Physician Joint Negotiation" (SB 1468), which currently is being considered by the Texas legislature.(1) The bill would permit competing physicians to jointly negotiate contractual terms with health plans under certain circumstances. Our understanding is that SB 1468 has been adopted by the Texas Senate, and that a vote on a similar measure is expected in the House of Representatives in the very near future. Given the limited time available, we highlight three concerns about the bill, but are not able to provide a complete analysis of all the issues that the bill raises.
The Commission has previously expressed serious concerns about the impact on consumer welfare of a federal proposal to enact an antitrust exemption intended to authorize collective negotiation between health service practitioners and health plans. In testimony before the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States House of Representatives in July 1998, the Commission opposed enactment of H.R. 4277, the "Quality Health-Care Coalition Act of 1998." The Commission stated that the exemption would immunize "a broad range of anticompetitive joint conduct by physicians and other health care professionals that could seriously harm consumers and undermine efforts to promote high-quality, cost-effective health care for consumers." Furthermore, the Commission pointed out, the exemption would impair innovation in health care financing and delivery, and reduce choices among alternative health plans. Finally, the Commission noted that an antitrust exemption is not needed in order to allow physicians collectively to express their concerns about patient care and quality of care issues that may arise from their participation in managed care plans, or to permit them to enter into joint ventures that can offer better alternatives to patients or to health plans. A copy of the Commission's testimony is enclosed for your information.
The bill being considered by the Texas legislature differs from H.R. 4277 in various respects. In contrast to the federal proposal, which would simply provide an antitrust exemption for collective negotiations, SB 1468 requires some oversight of the negotiating process by the Texas Attorney General. In addition, SB 1468 would limit to 10% the proportion of physicians in a geographic area who could negotiate collectively, unless the Attorney General approved inclusion of a larger number in the group. The bill allows collective negotiation of certain types of fee-related issues only where the Attorney General determines that the health plan has substantial market power.
It is not clear, however, to what extent these differences would reduce the potential for anticompetitive effects otherwise likely to arise from the authorization of collective bargaining among competing physicians. For example, the provision in Section 29.09(b) that no joint negotiation shall represent more than 10% of the licensed physicians in a defined geographic area provides no significant limitation on the aggregation of bargaining power by many types of physician groups. For many medical specialities, a group including all the physicians in a particular speciality or subspeciality would constitute less than 10% of all licensed physicians, and their combination in a single bargaining group could give them significant market power over health plans.(2) Although the bill permits the Attorney General to raise or lower the percentage in particular cases, it does not provide any standards to guide the Attorney General's decision. It is unclear, for example, whether the bill's intent is that the Attorney General limit bargaining groups to 10% of a properly defined antitrust market. Without such a limitation, the 10% cap on the size of physician bargaining groups does not protect against the risk of substantial consumer harm.
Second, it is not clear to what extent the bill's use of a health plan market power screen for some types of collective bargaining would limit potential consumer harm. The bill prohibits collective negotiation on certain specified fee-related issues, unless the Attorney General determines that a health plan with which physicians are negotiating possesses "substantial market power." However, the bill provides no standard for determining when substantial market power will be deemed to exist. We are uncertain whether the intent is to have the Attorney General apply established antitrust principles of market power analysis, or whether the reference in the bill's preamble to "imbalances" in bargaining power suggests some other approach that would compare the bargaining power of a plan to that of an individual physician. In addition, the scope of arrangements to which the market power screen applies is limited. For example, negotiating over formulation and application of physician reimbursement methodology is not subject to the requirement that the health plan have substantial market power, though such matters plainly can have a direct and substantial effect on fee levels. Collective negotiation about other "non-price" issues also can have a substantial effect on the cost of services that the plan covers, as well as limiting the options available to plans to meet consumer demand for high-quality and affordable health insurance.
Third, the bill imposes substantial responsibilities on the Attorney General that could be difficult to carry out given the time frames provided in the bill and the fact-intensive nature of the issues. Moreover, we note that the regulatory scheme established by the bill contains no mechanism for members of the public, or others who stand to be affected by the Attorney General's decision, to offer evidence and views pertaining to the costs and benefits of the proposal or any of the underlying issues. In addition, the bill provides little guidance as to how the discretion granted to the Attorney General is to be exercised. For example, section 29.09(b) of the bill directs the Attorney General to approve a request to enter into joint negotiation or a proposed contract if the applicants demonstrate that "the likely benefits resulting from the joint negotiation or proposed contact outweigh the disadvantages attributable to a reduction in competition" that may result, but it provides no criteria to guide the Attorney General in evaluating benefits or disadvantages, or in weighing one against the other.(3)
We hope you find these comments helpful. Should you have any additional questions concerning this issue, please contact Richard Feinstein at 202-326 3688.
Sincerely yours,
William J. Baer
Enclosure
1. This letter represents the views of the staff of the Bureau of Competition of the Federal Trade Commission and does not necessarily represent the views of the Commission or any individual Commissioner.
2. Physicians differ as to specialities and these individual specialties may constitute different product markets. Moreover, relevant geographic markets may differ as to specialty.
3. The nature of the oversight actually exercised by the Attorney General is important to the question whether private parties acting pursuant to the statute would be exempt from the federal antitrust laws by virtue of the "state action doctrine." The "state action doctrine" allows a state to override the national policy favoring competition where the state legislature clearly articulates a policy to displace competition with regulation, and state officials actively supervise private anticompetitive conduct. See California Retail Liquor Dealers Ass'n v. Midcal Aluminum, Inc., 445 U.S. 97 (1980). The active supervision requirement "is designed to ensure that the state action doctrine will shelter only the particular anticompetitive acts of private parties that in the judgment of the State, actually further state regulatory policies." Patrick v. Burget, 486 U.S. 94, 100 (1988). The question to be addressed in any individual case, therefore, is "whether the State has exercised sufficient independent judgment and control so that the details of the rates or prices have been established as a product of deliberate state intervention, not simply by agreement among private parties." Federal Trade Commission v. Ticor Title Insurance Co., 504 U.S.621, 634-35 (1992). We note in particular that Section 29.09(c) of the bill provides that an approval of the initial filing for authorization to bargain collectively covers all subsequent negotiations between the parties, apparently without regard to whether circumstances have changed such that the subsequent bargaining might no longer qualify for approval.