A Toothless Truce Lets Private Equity Off the Hook -By Fransiscus Nanga Roka

The much deeper failure is actually one of structure rather than process. Vertical and horizontal consolidation in physician services exists precisely because anesthesia, emergency medicine, and radiology are markets where patients cannot make a meaningful choice — care is administered under duress, by often out-of-network providers not chosen by the patient. If regulators try to address this dynamic through litigation case-by-case, years after each roll-up is complete, they are always fighting the last war. When the FTC finally wins a remedy, even a partial one, monopoly rents are extracted and incorporated into years of insurance premiums.