MergerMania
I wanna go to America
I wanna be where the air is clear
Everything free in America.
I wanna be in Amereeeka
West
Side Story.
Up until the three good guys from Bristol University (www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo) did
their study, the only studies on Hospital mergers dealt with what happened in
America in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
Historically, American Hospitals, which are mainly private,
were smaller than British Hospitals which are State owned. As hard times hit in
the 1980’s recession, they lost business and had to merge or take over each
other to survive.
I quote from the report;
“Analysis of private hospital mergers in the USA has
generally concluded that these mergers bring little benefits in terms of prices
and costs (e.g. Dranove and Lindrooth, 2003; Harrison, 2010; Vogt and Town
2006).
Our study is therefore more similar to studies which have
examined the impacts of large numbers of hospital mergers in the US during the
1990s (e.g., Dafny, 2009; Ho and Hamilton, 2000; Krishnan, 2001; Spang et al.,
2001; Town et al., 2006).
These studies find, in general, little benefit from merger
and consolidation. These mergers are the result of private decisions, as
opposed to central planning, and hospitals are mostly private firms.”
=======//=======
Now that’s
interesting. You would have thought that the super efficiency of the free
market – and, hey, I am talking about the American Free Market here, would have
meant that merging Hospitals would have produced more efficiency, better
patient outcomes and economic benefits.
Apparently not so.
So, the report then took a look at mergers which happened as a result of
the actions of a state regulator, as happened in Britain 1997 to 2004.
MergerMania
Neil Harris
(a don’t stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.comContact: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
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