Videos

The Hidden Monopoly: How Healthcare Platforms Threaten Competition

May 23, 2025

Jonathan Kanter (former DOJ Antitrust) and Martin Gaynor (Carnegie Mellon Professor and former FTC official) join The Capitol Forum to discuss their groundbreaking paper, The Rise of Healthcare Platforms. They explain how companies like UnitedHealth have evolved into sprawling conglomerates—combining insurer, provider, pharmacy, and PBM functions—and why this consolidation threatens both market competition and patient care.

Key topics include:

  • Why healthcare consolidation mirrors Big Tech platforms
  • The dangers of vertical integration and systemic risk
  • How antitrust enforcement must evolve to meet the challenge
  • Why current regulation is failing to protect patients
  • What a DOJ case against UnitedHealth could look like

📄 Read their paper in JAMA: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2832535

🎙️ Hosted by Teddy Downey, Executive Editor at The Capitol Forum