HCA has a monopoly on key health care services in Western North Carolina – and their own data proves it. That’s according to a revised complaint filed by attorneys for the plaintiffs in an antitrust lawsuit filed in state court last year.
HCA has denied that its Mission Health subsidiary has a monopoly, but in June 2022, the hospital behemoth submitted an application to expand its number of hospital beds in Asheville that calls this assertion into question. Citing an inpatient market at or above 88% in that application, HCA admitted a larger market share than the 70-80% lower courts have defined as a monopoly, prompting the plaintiffs to submit the revised complaint.
The Asheville Citizen times has a report (link below) on the revised filing, including citing concerns raised in the complaint about the role North Carolina’s now repealed COPA law played in the creation of the HCA/Mission monopoly.
“Neither Mission nor HCA acquired monopoly power by outcompeting rivals on price and quality as our antitrust laws envision,” the complaint states. “Instead, Mission became a monopoly solely by virtue of a merger that would have been unlawful under the antitrust law but that was shielded from suit by the protection the COPA gave from antitrust scrutiny.”