Category Archives: Competition

Jefferson Health and Einstein Healthcare merger moves forward after FTC withdraws challenge

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https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/jefferson-health-and-einstein-healthcare-network-merger-moves-forward-after-ftc-withdraws-0

Jefferson Health and Einstein Healthcare Network merger clear final hurdle after FTC will no longer challenge - 6abc Philadelphia

Jefferson’s hospital network will grow to 18 locations with Einstein’s three general acute care hospitals and an inpatient rehabilitation hospital.

The merger between Pennsylvania-based Jefferson Health and Einstein Healthcare Network can now close after the Federal Trade Commission voted to withdraw its opposition to the deal, Jefferson Health announced this week.

The deal is now expected to be finalized within the next six months.

Earlier this year, the FTC voted 4-0 to voluntarily dismiss its appeal to the Third Circuit of the district court, according to the commission’s case summary.

Once the deal is complete, Jefferson’s network of hospitals will grow to 18 with the addition of Einstein’s three general acute care hospitals and an inpatient rehabilitation hospital.

WHY IT MATTERS

Merger plans were first announced in 2018 in a deal estimated to be worth $599 million.

The FTC initially blocked the merger because it believed it would reduce competition in the Philadelphia and Montgomery counties.

It alleged the deal would give the two health systems control of at least 60% of the inpatient general acute care hospital services market in North Philadelphia, at least 45% of that market in Montgomery County, and at least 70% of the inpatient acute rehabilitation services market in the Philadelphia area.

But late last year, a federal judge blocked the FTC’s attempt to stop the merger. Judge Gerald Pappert of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania wrote that the FTC failed to demonstrate that there’s a credible threat of harm to competition. He pointed to other competitors in the region, such as Penn Medicine, Temple Health and Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic.

The FTC and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania attempted to appeal the court’s decision, but after Jefferson and Einstein filed a motion to withdraw the case, the commission unanimously voted to drop its appeal.

THE LARGER TREND

The FTC is taking a closer look at healthcare mergers and acquisitions to better understand how physician practice and healthcare facility mergers affect competition. Earlier this year, it sent orders to Aetna, Anthem, Florida Blue, Cigna, Health Care Service Corporation and United Healthcare to share patient-level claims data for inpatient, outpatient and physician services across 15 states from 2015 through 2020.

Although M&A activity was down in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kaufman Hall called the 79 transactions that did take place “remarkable” for falling within the range of the 92 deals from the year before.

The analysts expect activity to ramp up moving forward, however. They predict that as health systems evaluate their business strategies post-pandemic, those in strong positions will take advantage of other systems’ divestitures to grow their capabilities and expand into new markets.

ON THE RECORD

“We are excited to have Einstein and Jefferson come together, as our shared vision will enable us to improve the lives of patients, the health of our communities and enhance our health education and research capabilities,” said Ken Levitan, the interim president and CEO of Einstein Healthcare Network.

“By bringing our resources together, we can offer those we care for – particularly the historically underserved populations in Philadelphia and Montgomery County – even greater access to high-quality care.”

Georgia health systems discard merger plans, averting FTC challenge

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https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/georgia-health-systems-discard-merger-plans-averting-ftc-challenge/596136/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202021-03-04%20Healthcare%20Dive%20%5Bissue:32801%5D&utm_term=Healthcare%20Dive
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Definition

Dive Brief:

  • The Federal Trade Commission has closed its investigation of the merger between Atrium Health Navicent and Houston Healthcare System following news the two have abandoned their plans for a deal.
  • FTC staff had recommended commissioners challenge the merger on grounds that it would have led to “significant harm” for area residents and businesses in the form of higher healthcare costs, the FTC alleged. 
  • The tie-up between two of the largest systems in central Georgia would also hamper investment in facilities, technologies and expanded access to services, according to a statement released Wednesday.

Dive Insight:

FTC Acting Chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter said in the statement, “This is great news for patients in central Georgia.”

When the deal was originally announced, Atrium Health Navicent promised to spend $150 million on Houston over a decade, earmarking the money for routine capital expenditures and strategic growth initiatives, according to a previous review of the transaction by the state attorney general’s office.

After engaging with consultants at Kaufman Hall in 2017, leaders at Houston, an independent system, decided they needed to find a strategic partner to weather long-term challenges and ultimately picked Navicent.

Navicent recently merged with North Carolina-based Atrium Health, formerly known as Carolinas HealthCare System. At the time, the deal gave Atrium a foothold in the state of Georgia.

Healthcare consolidation has continued at a steady clip despite the pandemic, and the FTC will be closely investigating any deal involving close competitors. The agency is seeking to expand its arsenal to block future mergers by researching new theories of harm.

The FTC attempted to block a hospital deal in Philadelphia last year but has since abandoned its challenge after a series of setbacks in court. The judge was not swayed that the consolidation of providers would lead to an increase in prices given the plethora of healthcare options in the area.

Justice Department welcomes passage of the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act of 2020

Posted on by • Posted in Antitrust, Competition, Competitive Health insurance Reform Act of 2020, Consumer Protection, Dept of Justice (DOJ), Federal Trade Commission, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Health Insurance Industry, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Market Share, McCarran-Ferguson Act, Monopoly, Monopoly Behavior • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/justice-department-welcomes-passage-competitive-health-insurance-reform-act-2020

Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act of 2020 (2021; 116th Congress H.R. 1418) - GovTrack.us

Health insurers are no longer immune from federal antitrust scrutiny for conduct considered the business of insurance.

The Competitive Health insurance Reform Act of 2020 became law on January 13, a move praised by the Department of Justice but opposed by health insurers.

Health insurers are no longer immune from federal antitrust scrutiny for conduct considered the business of insurance and regulated by state law.

With enactment of the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act, the DOJ and Federal Trade Commission have expanded authority to prosecute alleged anticompetitive behavior, including data sharing between insurers. 

The McCarran-Ferguson Act previously afforded immunity by exempting from federal antitrust laws certain conduct considered the “business of insurance.” This exemption has sometimes been interpreted by courts to allow a range of what the Justice Department considered “harmful” anticompetitive conduct in health insurance markets.

The new law aims to promote more competition in health insurance markets by limiting the scope of conduct that’s exempt from antitrust laws. This move was praised by the Trump Justice Department shortly before the former president left office.

WHAT’S THE IMPACT?

The antitrust scrutiny is coming at a time when insurers are under a deadline to meet interoperability standards to share information with patients that meet Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, or FHIR, standards.

Eliminating the exemption undermines the goal of affordable coverage by adding administrative red tape and reducing market competition, according to Matt Eyles, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans. 

“The McCarran-Ferguson Act recognized that all healthcare is local, and that states should be able to govern their own health insurance markets,” Eyles said in December. “Removal of this exemption adds tremendous administrative costs while delivering absolutely no value for patients and consumers. It will unnecessarily add layers of bureaucracy, destabilize markets, create conflicting federal and state oversight requirements, and lead to costly litigation.” 

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners sent a letter to Senate leaders on December 2 voicing its concern for the bill’s passage.

“The premise of the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act is that collusion among health insurance companies is permitted under state law and that the McCarran-Ferguson Act somehow currently protects these practices. This is not true. The McCarran-Ferguson antitrust exemption for health insurance does not allow or encourage conspiratorial behavior but simply leaves oversight of insurance, including health insurance, to the states – and state laws do not allow collusion,” commissioners said.

“The potential for bid rigging, price-fixing and market allocation is of great concern to state insurance regulators and we share your view that such practices would be harmful to consumers and should not be tolerated. However, we want to assure you that these activities are not permitted under state law,” commissioners wrote.

While insurers have not been thrilled with the move, Consumer Reports said the legislation is good for providers who have felt pressured into contract terms that benefit insurers.

THE LARGER TREND

The Justice Department has a track record of successfully enforcing the antitrust laws against health insurers. Over the past five years, the department has enforced the antitrust laws against health insurers involved in transactions valued at over $160 billion.

The Act will help the department build on those successes by requiring health insurers to play by the same rules as competitors in other industries. It will clarify when health insurers qualify for the McCarran-Ferguson exemption, and it will enable the Antitrust Division to spend resources more efficiently to achieve desired results, the Justice Department said.

On January 13, Trump signed into law the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act of 2020, which limits the antitrust exemption available to health insurance companies under the McCarran-Ferguson Act. The act, sponsored by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore), passed the House of Representatives on Sept. 21, 2020 and passed the Senate on Dec. 22.

‘Really difficult nut to crack’: MedPAC torn over telehealth regs post-COVID-19

Posted on by • Posted in Access, Access & Quality of Healthcare, Competition, Health Policy, Innovation, Medicare, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), Pandemic, Physician, Physician Practice Management, Telemedicine, Telemedicine Reimbursement, Virtual Care Strategy, Virtual Healthcare, Virtual Visit, Vulnerable Populations • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/really-difficult-nut-to-crack-medpac-torn-over-telehealth-regs-post-covi/593466/

Dive Brief:

  • Members of an influential congressional advisory committee on Medicare are torn on how best to regulate telehealth after the COVID-19 public health emergency, hinting at the difficulty Washington faces as it looks to impose guardrails on virtual care without restricting its use after the pandemic ends.
  • During a Thursday virtual meeting, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission expressed its support of telehealth broadly, but many members noted snowballing use of the new modality could create more fraud and abuse in the system down the line.
  • Key questions of how much Medicare reimburses for telehealth visits and what type of visits are paid for won’t be easily answered, MedPAC commissioners noted. “This is a really, really difficult nut to crack,” Michael Chernew, MedPAC chairman and a healthcare policy professor at Harvard Medical School, said.

Dive Insight:

Virtual care has kept much of the industry running during the coronavirus pandemic, allowing patients to receive needed care at home. Much of this was possible due to the declaration of a public health emergency early 2020, allowing Medicare to reimburse for a greater swath of telehealth services and nixing other restrictions on virtual care.

However, much of that freedom is only in place for the duration of the public health emergency, leaving regulators and legislators scrambling to figure which new flexibilities they should codify, and which perhaps are best left in the past along with COVID-19.

It’s a tricky debate as Washington looks to strike a balance between keeping access open and costs low.

In a Thursday meeting, MedPAC debated a handful of policy proposals to try and navigate this tightrope. Analysts floated ideas like making some expansions permanent for all fee-for-service clinicians; covering certain telehealth services for all beneficiaries that can be received in their homes; and covering telehealth services if they meet CMS’ criteria for an allowable service.

But many MedPAC members were wary of making any concrete near-term policy changes, suggesting instead the industry should be allowed to test drive new telehealth regulations after COVID-19 without baking them in permanently. 

“I don’t think what we’ve done with the pandemic can be considered pilot testing. I think a lot of this is likely to go forward no matter what we do because the gate has been opened, and it’s going to be really hard to close it,” Marjorie Ginsburg, founder of the Center for Healthcare Decisions, said. But “I see this just exploding into more fraud and abuse than we can even begin imagining.”

Paul Ginsburg, health policy chair at the Brookings Institution, suggested a two-year pilot of any changes after the public health emergency ends.

However, it would be “regressive” to roll back all the gains virtual care has made over the past year, according to Jonathan Perlin, CMO of health system HCA.

“These technologies are such a part of the environment that at this point, I fear [it] would be anachronistic not to accept that reality,” Perlin said.

Among other questions, commissioners were split on how much Medicare should pay for telehealth after the pandemic ends. 

That parity debate is perhaps the biggest question mark hanging over the future of the industry. Detractors argue virtual care services involve lower practice costs, as remote physicians not in an office don’t need to shell out for supplies and staff. Paying at parity could distort prices, and cause fee-for-service physicians to prioritize delivering telehealth services over in-person ones, some commissioners warned.

Other MedPAC members pointed out a lower payment rate could stifle technological innovation at a pivotal time for the healthcare industry.

MedPAC analysts suggested paying lower rates for virtual care services than in-person ones, and paying less for audio-only services than video.

Commissioners agreed audio-only services should be allowed, but that a lower rate was fair. Commissioner Dana Gelb Safran, SVP at Well Health, suggested CMS should consider outlining certain services where video must be used out of clinical necessity.

Previously, telehealth services needed a video component to be reimbursed. Proponents argue expanded access to audio-only services will improve care access, especially for low-income populations that might not have the broadband access or technology to facilitate a video visit.

Another major concern for commissioners is how permanently expanding telehealth access would affect direct-to-consumer telehealth giants like Teladoc and Amwell. If all telehealth services delivered at home are covered, that could allow the private companies to “really take over the industry,” Larry Casalino, health policy chief in the Weill Cornell Department of Healthcare Policy and Research, said.

Because of the lower back-end costs for virtual care than in-office services, paying vendors the same rate as in-office physicians could drive a lot of brick-and-mortar doctors out of business, commissioners warned.

Drug Prices: We’ve Seen This Movie Before

Posted on by • Posted in Antitrust, Chronic Care Management, Chronic Conditions, Chronic Diseases, Competition, Generic Drugs, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Market Exclusivity, Market Failure, Market Power, Market Share, Monopoly, Monopoly Behavior, Monopoly Rights, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pharmaceutical Industry, Preexisting Conditions, Price Fixing • Leave a comment
https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/generalprofessionalissues/90841?xid=fb_o&trw=no&fbclid=IwAR0fi6hn3yGa8VB1bmAa4djQhXfKmroJigdpf_SjSeKt_Imjj3PzWEU1nfE

As happened with cars in the 1960s, price competition among brand-name drugs is hard to find.

Before 1973, when the Arab oil embargo upended the U.S. auto industry, Americans witnessed an annual ritual by carmakers. In the late summer, the Big Three — Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors — would release sticker prices for their products, always showing increases, of course.

Almost always, the increases from each company for similar models were nearly identical. If one company’s was out of line — substantially bigger or smaller than its erstwhile competitors’ — it quickly made an adjustment. Explicit collusion to fix prices was never proven, but the effect for consumers was the same.

Now, researchers report that something very similar seems to be occurring for big-market brand-name drugs, including anti-diabetic medications and blood thinners.

Average wholesale prices for products in five classes — direct-acting oral anticoagulants (DOACs), P2Y12 inhibitors, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonists, dipeptidyl dipeptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors, and sodium-glucose transport protein-2 (SGLT-2) inhibitors — increased in “lock-step” each year from 2015 to 2020, according to Joseph Ross, MD, of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues writing in JAMA Network Open.

These increases ranged from annual averages of 6.6% for DDP4 inhibitors to 13.5% for P2Y12 inhibitors — far outpacing not only inflation in general, but even the 2.1% average for all prescription drugs.

Within each class, Kendall τb correlation coefficients for average wholesale prices were as follows:

  • DOACs: 0.98
  • SGLT-2 inhibitors: 0.98
  • DPP-4 inhibitors: 0.96
  • GLP-1 agonists: 0.92
  • P2Y12 inhibitors: 0.75

“These results suggest there was little price competition among the sponsors of these products,” Ross and colleagues wrote.

Although the analysis came with significant limitations — it didn’t account for rebates or other discounts, for example — the researchers said some patients must suffer from these increases.

“Rebates, list prices, and net prices have been growing for brand-name medications, and rebate growth has been shown to positively correlate with list price growth, thereby impacting costs faced by patients paying a percentage of (or the full) list price,“ the group noted. “Therefore, the lock-step price increases of brand-name medications, without evidence of price competition, raise concerns and would be expected to adversely affect patient adherence to medications and thus clinical outcomes.”

For the car buyers, the solution to lock-step price increases was imposed from outside: soaring gas prices in the mid-1970s prompted demand for vehicles with better fuel economy than domestic makers were prepared to sell. That opened the market to Japanese cars that not only got better mileage, but were also more reliable and (in many cases) cheaper than Big Three products. Thus ended Detroit’s ability to set prices.

How to rein in Big Pharma is less clear. For their part, Ross and colleagues suggested policies to limit such lock-step price hikes, shortened patent exclusivity periods, and faster introduction of generic equivalents.

Hospital buy-ups of physician practices under fresh FTC scrutiny

Posted on by • Posted in Antitrust, Certificates of Public Advantage (COPAs), Competition, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Health Insurance Industry, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Market Share, Medical Group, Mergers & Acquisitions, Physician Practice Management • Leave a comment
https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/hospital-buy-ups-of-physician-practices-under-fresh-ftc-scrutiny/593469/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202021-01-15%20Healthcare%20Dive%20%5Bissue:31930%5D&utm_term=Healthcare%20Dive
FTC takes tech scrutiny to heart of Silicon Valley

Dive Brief:

  • The Federal Trade Commission sent orders to six health insurance companies to obtain patient-level claims data for inpatient, outpatient, and physician services from 2015 to 2020, the agency said Thursday.
  • The FTC wants to figure out how hospitals’ acquisitions of physician practices has affected competition.  
  • The agency sent orders to some of the nation’s largest insurance companies, including UnitedHealthcare, Anthem, Aetna, Cigna, Florida Blue and Health Care Service Corporation.

Dive Insight:

This action is part of a larger effort underway at the agency to consider new questions and areas of study to help it understand the ultimate impact of mergers. The hope is that those studies will yield evidence to better equip the agency to legally challenge mergers in the future. 

Health economists cheered the news online following the FTC’s Thursday’s announcement about studying physician practice buy-ups. 

Martin Gaynor, former director of FTC’s Bureau of Economics, tweeted: “This is a big deal – a huge # of physician practices are now owned by hospitals.” Gaynor is a health economist at Carnegie Mellon.

“Important step to advance FTC’s understanding of the market and could improve their ability to win cases,” Emily Gee, a health economist at the Center for American Progress, tweeted.

In the orders, the FTC asks the insurers for data such as the total billed charges of all health providers, total deductibles, copays and coinsurance paid by the patient. It also asks for data tied to each inpatient admission and outpatient and physician episodes during the time period in question, which will likely result in a barrage of data for the agency to review.   

“The study results should aid the FTC’s enforcement mission by providing much more detailed information than is currently available about how physician practice mergers and healthcare facility mergers affect competition,” the agency said in a statement. 

This area of study expands the agency’s current work. One area already of interest within this broader retrospective merger review program is the scrutiny of labor markets. 

The agency has traditionally focused on how healthcare tie-ups affect prices. But the agency has signaled that it is increasingly interested in how mergers and acquisitions ultimately affect workers’ wages, including nurses.

One area of concern for the FTC is states’ willingness to greenlight COPAs, or certificates of public advantage (COPAs), which essentially shield mergers from federal antitrust regulators in exchange for prolonged state oversight.

In 2019, the agency sent orders to five insurance companies seeking data to study the impact of COPAs.  

Bill to end antitrust exemption for health insurers awaits Trump’s signature

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/payer-issues/bill-to-end-antitrust-exemption-for-health-insurers-awaits-trump-s-signature.html?origin=PayerE&utm_source=PayerE&utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter&oly_enc_id=2893H2397267F7G
Health Insurance Antitrust Exemption Ending

Congress passed a bill that would end an antitrust exemption for health insurers, and the legislation is expected to be signed by President Donald Trump, according to The National Law Review. 

On Sept. 21, 2020, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act of 2020, with the Senate passing the Act on Dec. 22, 2020.

The bill would repeal parts of the McCarran-Ferguson Act that exempt insurance businesses from most federal regulation, including antitrust regulation. When the bill passed the House, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., who introduced the bill, said, “As long as this exemption is still on the books, health insurance companies legally can, and do, collude to drive up prices, limit competition, conspire to underpay doctors and hospitals, and overcharge consumers.”

Proponents of the McCarran-Ferguson Act have said it sets up important state authorities. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has said, “The McCarran-Ferguson Act is as relevant today as it was when it was adopted. It contains the basic delegation of authority from Congress to the states with respect to the regulation and taxation of the business of insurance. It has been affirmed as the law of the land in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and in the Dodd-Frank Act.”

The Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act of 2020 was presented to President Trump for his signature on Jan. 1. He was expected to sign the legislation before pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol Jan. 6.

FTC signals nurses’ wages will become important measure in antitrust enforcement

Posted on by • Posted in Antitrust, Competition, Employee Compensation, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Market Share, Mergers & Acquisitions, Nurses, Nurses Compensation, Nurses Union, Pricing • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/ftc-signals-nurses-wages-important-measure-antitrust-enforcement-hospitals/589142/

The Federal Trade Commission is revamping a key tool in its arsenal to police competition across a plethora of industries, a development that could have direct implications for future healthcare deals.

In September, the FTC said it was expanding its retrospective merger program to consider new questions and areas of study that the bureau previously has not researched extensively.

One avenue it will zero in on is labor markets, including workers and their wages, and how mergers may ultimately affect them.

It’s an area that could be ripe for scrutinizing healthcare deals, and the FTC has already begun to use this argument to bolster its case against anticompetitive tie-ups. Prior to this new argument, the antitrust agency — in its legal challenges and research — has primarily focused on how healthcare mergers affect prices.

The retrospective program is hugely important to the FTC as it is a way to examine past mergers and produce research that can be used as evidence in legal challenges to block future anticompetitive deals or even challenge already consummated deals.

“I do suspect that healthcare is a significant concern underlying why they decided to expand this program,” Bill Horton, an attorney with Jones Walker LLP, said.

So far this year, the FTC has tried to block two proposed hospital mergers. The agency sued to stop a proposed tie-up in Philadelphia in February between Jefferson Health and Albert Einstein Healthcare Network.

More recently, the FTC is attempting to bar Methodist Le Boneheur in Memphis from buying two local hospitals from Tenet Health in a $350 million deal.

In both cases, the agency alleges the deals will end the robust competition that exists and harm consumers in the form of higher prices, including steeper insurance premiums, and diminished quality of services.

The agency has long leaned on the price argument (and its evidence) to challenge proposed transactions. However, recent actions signal the FTC will include a new argument: depressed wages, particularly those of nurses.

In a letter to Texas regulators in September, the FTC warned that if the state allowed a health system to acquire its only other competitor in rural West Texas, it would lead to limited wage growth among registered nurses as an already consolidated market compresses further.

As part of its arguments, the FTC pointed to a 2020 study that researched the effects on labor market concentration and worker outcomes.

Last year, the agency sent orders to five health insurance companies and two health systems to provide information so it could further study the affect COPAs, or Certificates of Public Advantage, have on price and quality. The FTC also noted it was planning to study the impact on wages.

FTC turned to review after string of defeats

A number of losses in the 1990s led the agency to conduct a hospital merger retrospective, Chris Garmon, a former economist with the FTC, said. Garmon has helped conduct and author retrospective reviews.

Between 1994 and 2000, there were about 900 hospital mergers by the U.S Department of Justice’s count. The bureau lost all seven of the cases they attempted to litigate in that time period, according to the DOJ.

The defendants in those cases succeeded by employing two types of defenses. The nonprofit hospitals would argue they would not charge higher prices because as nonprofits they had the best interests of the community in mind. Second, hospitals tried to argue that their markets were much larger than the FTC’s definition, and that they compete with hospitals many miles away.

Retrospective studies found evidence that undermined these claims. That’s why the studies are so important, Garmon said.

“It really is to better understand what happens after mergers,” Garmon said. It’s an evaluation exercise, given many transaction occur prospectively or before a deal is consummated. So the reviews help the FTC answer questions like: “Did we get it right? Or did we let any mergers we shouldn’t let through?”