The UK's Competition Commission (CC) has published today its provisional findings and remedies to improve competition in private healthcare markets. All relevant documents can be accessed here.
The CC's provisional findings show a situation where hospitals hold a significant degree of market power derived from a lack of local competition (particularly in the case of companies that own clusters of hospitals in a given region), which is not compensated by the countervailing power of (even the largest) private medical insurance companies. The CC is consequently envisaging to recommend some structural remedies that may include the divestiture of up to 20 hospitals in different areas of the UK.
In my view, the analysis of this sector is difficult to understand because it is conducted in isolation. My impression is that public and private healthcare markets should be analysed together--or that, at least, their connections should receive more attention--since public healthcare seems an obvious constraint on the offer and demand of private healthcare. If that was correct, then, the proposed structural changes in this sector should take into consideration the significant reform of the National Health System (NHS) that is taking place and the effects that the recently adopted National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No. 2) Regulations 2013 may generate in the provision of (public) healthcare in the UK in the near future.
In any case, it seems clear that the competitive landscape of the healthcare sector in the UK is about to suffer a significant change (in both its public and private dimensions) and that this is an area that deserves some careful policy-making for its immediate impact on the welfare of citizens and the costs (for private and public entities) of continuing to offer them satisfactory standards of healthcare. In that regard, it will be interesting to see what are the final remedies and recommendations due to be adopted by the CC in April 2014.