- A Massachusetts judge last Thursday rejected an agreement that would have allowed Partners HealthCare to acquire three hospitals. The Boston-based system is already the largest in the state, with 12 hospitals including Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. The state’s then-attorney general, Martha Coakley, reached a consent decree with the system last year to resolve an antitrust investigation into the deal, which was fiercely opposed by Partners’ competitors. Superior Court Judge Janice Sanders, however, declined to approve it, writing that she has “serious concerns” about the enforceability of the remedies. The hospitals include 329-bed South Shore Hospital in South Weymouth, Mass., and two-hospital Hallmark Health System, with campuses in Medford and Melrose.
- Health spending increased 4% in the fourth quarter from the same three months a year ago, the first estimate for economic growth in the final months of last year. That’s slightly less than the 4.3% growth for the third quarter. The figures are not adjusted for inflation. The slight dip “seems suspect” because healthcare employment, a possible indicator of patient demand, accelerated as 2014 ended, said Paul Hughes-Cromwick, a senior health economist with the Altarum Institute’s Center for Sustainable Health Spending.
- The new year is already a busy one for supporters of “right-to-try” laws. A national campaign to pass legislation that would allow terminally ill patients to get unapproved drugs and devices in each state made its way to Illinois last Friday with lawmakers from both parties throwing their support behind a measure that would make the state the sixth to have a right-to-try statute. The bill would allow drug and device manufacturers whose products are still in the investigational stage to offer those therapies to terminally ill patients once those products have completed Phase 1 clinical trials under the Food and Drug Administration’s protocols. Similar laws were passed last year in Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Michigan and Missouri.
Judge rejects deal to allow Partners Healthcare to aqcuire three hospitals, and other news
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