Top Antitrust Lawmaker Takes Aim at Health-Care Consolidation

An influential House lawmaker intends to start crafting legislation allowing the Federal Trade Commission to more easily punish anticompetitive behavior in the health-care industry.

Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), the chairman of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, said in an interview that he is going to start working on legislation based on recommendations from economics professors and researchers at a recent hearing.

Courts typically push back on what the FTC considers anticompetitive practices because the law is unclear, Fiona Scott Morton, an economics professor at the Yale School of Management, said at the March 7 hearing. With more guidance, the ...