EXCLUSIVE — Consumer Action for a Strong Economy is launching a $1 million ad buy on Tuesday, pinpointing hospital monopolies as a cause for rising healthcare prices in the United States.
The ad campaign is aimed at opinion leaders within the Beltway and will rollout on social media and streaming platforms in the Washington, D.C., area, the Washington Examiner exclusively learned. The campaign includes a new advertisement called “Hospital Monopolies” that rails against the consolidation of hospital systems across the U.S. for skyrocketing care and treatment prices.
“The big hospital monopolies have way too much power. They’re buying up community hospitals. They’re taking over family doctor practices. They’ve increased their prices by 200% and they’re hiding those price increases to pad their profits. Now patients are paying more for their care because hospitals put profits first,” the 30-second video ad says.
CASE, a nonprofit group that promotes free market consumer interests, is launching the anti-hospital monopolies campaign just days before Congress convenes affordability-focused hearings with the nation’s top health insurers. CASE argues that hospital mergers and acquisitions have “only exacerbated the problem” of increasing hospital prices, pointing to a Missouri Medicine editorial in a blog post.
“In many regions, one or two large hospital systems dominate, giving them the power to charge higher prices without delivering better outcomes. ‘Certificate of Need’ policies at the state level encourage this result, creating local health care monopolies and preventing true free market competition. Patients, employers, and taxpayers all end up paying the price,” CASE wrote in the blog post.
Though some field experts argue that consolidation leads to more service and specialty offerings, much of the research on mergers points to an increase in healthcare prices, according to KFF.
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The House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce committees will hold a series of congressional hearings on healthcare affordability starting on Thursday. The first hearing will include testimonies from the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, Stephen Hemsley; CVS Health, David Joyner; Elevance Health, Gail Boudreaux; the Cigna Group, David Cordani; and Ascendiun, Paul Markovich.
“This hearing is the first in a series to examine the root causes driving higher health care prices and discuss policies that will lower the cost of care for all Americans. Republicans are committed to making health care more affordable by driving solutions that increase patient choice and competition, root out waste, fraud, and abuse, and put patients back at the center of our health care system,” the chairmen of the House committees, Reps. Jason Smith (R-MO) and Brett Guthrie (R-KY), said in a joint statement.
