“To Know Where You’re Going, Look at Where You’ve Been”

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has initiated policies and legal challenges that have shaped the evolution of competition in healthcare. This chapter discusses not only discusses the current matters in healthcare competition, but it also gives a history of past issues faced by the FTC and the approaches used to resolve them. These FTC actions range from challenges to hospital mergers to preventing “reverse payments” from patent holders to generic entrants in pharmaceuticals. Ultimately the healthcare industry faces many unique regulatory and competitive aspects that, while challenging, do not require special rules.