Source: site
On March 20, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced it was launching a Healthcare Task Force that will “engage in a coordinated, integrated approach to healthcare enforcement and advocacy to protect American patients, healthcare workers, and taxpayers.”[i] This directive aligns with the FTC’s continued focus on healthcare enforcement and policy, as well as President Trump’s February 25, 2025 Executive Order to create a “more competitive, innovative, affordable, and higher quality healthcare system.”[ii]
What is the Healthcare Task Force?
In the FTC’s directive, Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson stated that consolidation and anticompetitive conduct in the healthcare marketplace have been drivers of higher healthcare prices, lower quality, decreased access and transparency, and stifled innovation. In an attempt to solve this problem, the Healthcare Task Force will combine antitrust and consumer protection enforcement under a single, coordinated initiative and expand to agency and law enforcement partners beyond FTC, such as the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice, to deepen expertise and increase reach.
The Healthcare Task Force will be co-chaired by one representative from each of the FTC’s Bureaus of Competition and Consumer Protection, each of whom shall be designated by their respective Bureau Directors, as well as at least three members from each Commission Bureau and one member from each of the Office of Policy Planning, the Office of Technology, and the Office of General Counsel. Together, the Healthcare Task Force aims to:
- share knowledge, resources, third-party sources, market intelligence, case leads, and relationships with other agencies and stakeholders;
- identify and lead targeted enforcement and advocacy initiatives focused on key priorities within the healthcare space in coordination with the Chairman’s office and the Bureau Front Offices;
- devise coherent agency-wide strategies on new and nascent investigations;
- institute a proactive and strategic approach to identifying amicus and statement of interest opportunities; and
- conduct ongoing horizon-scanning exercises to identify emerging issues and new priority areas for enforcement and advocacy.
The Future Impact of Healthcare Task Force
The creation of the Healthcare Task Force under the second Trump Administration is consistent with an outgrowth of a longstanding bipartisan trend towards an increased focus on healthcare enforcement. Recently, the FTC has focused on pharmacy benefit managers, medical devices manufacturers, and deceptive or misleading advertising from healthcare providers. The new directive emphasizes the need for continued antitrust scrutiny on the healthcare industry and signals that the FTC wants to take a larger role in shaping healthcare policy through enforcement actions.
Looking ahead, it is difficult to see how the Healthcare Task Force will meaningfully alter the FTC’s approach with respect to healthcare transactions, particularly traditional provider transactions. Provider transactions have been—and will continue to be—reviewed closely, with or without a task force. The same is true with many healthcare-related technology and data transactions. However, the Healthcare Task Force may lead to a new emphasis by the FTC on other healthcare-adjacent areas, such as consumer protection matters (e.g., billing, marketing, privacy, and consumer fraud).
FOOTNOTES
[i] Memorandum from Andrew N. Ferguson, FTC Chairman, to Daniel Guarnera, Dir., Bureau of Competition, Christopher Mufarrige, Dir., Bureau of Consumer Prot., Ted Rosenbaum, Acting Dir., Bureau of Econ., Brendan Chestnut, Dir., Off. of Pol’y Plan., Ian Mason, Acting Chief Tech. Off. (Mar. 20, 2026), https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Memorandum-Ferguson-re-Healthcare-Task-Force.pdf.
[ii] Exec. Order No. 142218 (Feb. 25, 2025), https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/making-america-healthy-again-by-empowering-patients-with-clear-accurate-and-actionable-healthcare-pricing-information/.
Listen to this article
Upcoming Events
