Should regulators block CVS from buying Aetna?
A proposed health-care merger raises difficult antitrust questions
AMERICA has a competition problem. Market concentration has risen in more than three-quarters of industries since the late 1990s. Concentration has led to higher profits and higher returns for shareholders at the expense of consumers. Antitrust authorities have become more supine: between 1970 and 1999, regulators brought an average of 16 cases a year in order to prevent big firms from becoming even bigger; between 2000 and 2014, that number fell below three.
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Prescription debate”
From the November 4th 2017 edition
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