SMARTER Moves for the FTC

The Standard Mergers and Acquisitions Review Through Equal Rules (SMARTER) Act passed the House on Wednesday. This represents real progress on legislation that the AHA actively supports. The act would align the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) merger review with that of the Department of Justice (DOJ) by eliminating FTC’s ability to use its own administrative tribunal to challenge a merger – it would have to go to court just like DOJ. This would remove costly and unfair regulatory roadblocks to hospital realignment and field-wide efforts to build a better care delivery health system that can deliver higher quality and better coordinated care to better meet the needs of patients and communities. There’s still a ways to go, and we’ll keep pushing for Senate consideration. But, given the current legislative stalemate in Washington on so many issues, this was an important victory that moves us in the right direction.