The American Hospital Association's chief spoke out against The Wall Street Journal's editorial board for arguing in a June 4 op-ed that CVS Health's $69 billion acquisition of Aetna will "inject more competition into markets."
In a counter argument published by WSJ June 10, AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack said the editorial board "misses the mark in its criticism of hospitals and health systems as drivers of healthcare spending." He pointed to a statistic indicating that hospital price growth has been under 2 percent in recent years.
Mr. Pollack also argued the WSJ editorial board failed to point out "the benefits that hospital mergers create for communities."
"These coordinated systems of care are often critical in keeping the doors open for hospitals that operate in the red. Further, by strengthening linkages to each other and to physicians, they help improve efficiency to better coordinate patient care," he wrote.
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