CAHC President Joel White testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, where he was asked why the ACA hasn’t lowered health costs.
He [Sen. Ron Johnson] asked Joel White, president of the Council for Affordable Health Coverage and one of the witnesses at the hearing, to explain about the effects of healthcare industry consolidation.
“What we saw was again massive consolidation in the insurance markets, and massive consolidation in hospital markets,” White said. “That hospital market consolidation drove up prices by 15-30%; that flows directly through to premiums. That’s just basic economics. When you have less competition, people look around, and [say], ‘We can charge [more and] get away with it’ … There’s no incentive to reduce costs anywhere along the supply chain.”