Dartmouth Health and Manchester, N.H.-based GraniteOne Health are canceling their proposed merger after the state Attorney General's Office said the move would violate the New Hampshire constitution, according to VTDigger.
A May 13 report from Attorney General John Formella said the proposed merger would consolidate the two competitors and make them into a single system controlled by Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth, ending competition between the two systems and increasing healthcare costs.
"Without remedies in place protecting the public from harm and ensuring the combined system delivers on the promised benefits, the transaction as proposed is not something that I can approve," Mr. Formella said.
Dartmouth Health CEO Joanne Conroy, MD, acknowledged that the merger, first proposed in January 2019, may not have made as much sense today as it did back then.
"Although we disagree with, and are deeply disappointed by, the result of the regulatory review, we respect the process that led to this decision," Dr. Conroy said in a Friday email to employees, according to VTDigger. "But it has become clear to us that those benefits and promises that we envisioned several years ago are no longer practical and realistic in the current environment."
"The parties were not able to agree on all of the terms," a spokesperson for GraniteOne told VTDigger in an email. "We reached an impasse late (Thursday) afternoon and will not receive the regulatory approval we need to move forward. This outcome is disappointing for GraniteOne Health and its members — CMC, Huggins Hospital, and Monadnock Community Hospital. It's also disappointing for the patients and communities of New Hampshire. Based on the public forums we held last fall, it was clear how much the community supports our organizations and recognized the benefits this combination would have provided."