Failed hospital mergers

The spate of hospital mergers in recent years has yielded both substantial increases in market power and many divestitures. These seemingly contradictory results stem from the pressures imposed by stakeholders of merging hospitals and the inability of those stakeholders to exert control over nonprofit institutions prior to the effectuation of a merger. This Article examines several recent mergers, analyses their failures, and recommends that the judiciary and state attorneys general look carefully at merging nonprofits so as to fill the void left by the lack of market control mechanisms.