The Importance Of Federal Antitrust Laws

The first antitrust law was passed in 1890 by Congress called, the Sherman Act. It was a wide-ranging charter of economic liberty designed to preserve unrestricted competition within the rule of trade. Congress then passed two additional antitrust laws in 1914, called the Federal Trade Commission Act that formed the FTC, and the Clayton Act. These would be the three essential antitrust, federal laws that are still in effect today (The Antitrust Laws, 2013). Antitrust laws prohibit illegal mergers and business practices, which leaves the court of law to resolve which laws were broken based on the case facts. Antitrust laws have the same straightforward objective and that is to protect the progression of competition to benefit consumers, in making sure that there are incentives for companies to function proficiently, to preserve low prices, and higher quality(The Antitrust Laws, 2013).

Anti-trust laws in the United States have been effectively used to prevent monopolies in industries like telecommunications, oil and gas and computer software. Anti-trust laws are enforced in order to maintain free competition in the marketplace, which generates lower prices and incentivizes the development of high quality products. Today, hospital systems are experiencing an era of heavy consolidation, which include mergers and acquisitions and physician practice buy-outs. According to the Wall Street Journal, hospitals completed 86 merger and acquisition deals valued at $7.9 billion in 2011, which was the most in a decade. Like in other industries, this developing trend in hospital consolidations encourages price fixing and

Many companies and people have committed monopolies before they were illegal and even after it. A monopoly is when one person has complete control over a company and makes close to 100% of the profits but because of the The Sherman Antitrust Act passed on April 8, 1890, “combination in the form of trust and otherwise, conspiracy in restraint of trade.” In simple terms the act prohibited any forms of monopoly in business and marketing fields. Monopolies committed before the Act, making it legal in every way but unethical, by some of the famously known marketers like John D. Rockefeller making him filthy rich. While others committed after The Sherman Antitrust Act caused a company like Microsoft to be sued and have a bruised ego.

On May 18, 1998 The United States Department of Justice, along with 20 states and lead

Consumers in the health care field value competition in many circumstances due to the fact that it assist that it can decrease costs, improve quality of health care delivered and promotes latest technology and innovation. Therefore, it is the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) duty as a law enforcer to thwart firms from engaging in anticompetitive behaviors that could potentially prevent the above described from happening and ultimately harm consumer. Additionally, the FTC provides proper guidance to physicians, health professionals, hospitals and providers to assist in obeying the nation’s antitrust laws (Gamble, 2014).

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act allows consumers to feel protected in our economy. Before this act was passed, consumers were subject to unfair prices, unsafe work environments, and less jobs. This legislation made it possible for consumers to

even before the healthcare reform. As a matter of fact, that in 1997 Congress enacted for the very first time a unique statutory restriction on the ability of doctors and Medicare patients to contract privately with each other for the delivery of medical services outside of the Medicare program. These legalized restrictions have not impacted medicine but the quality of care that could beneficially be provided. On one hand the need for more regulation’s and control over government healthcare spending certainly will need to be implemented because that is a major challenge in itself. But on the other hand, physicians will need to be a part of laws that try finagle regulations that could affect their quality of service as it pertains to patients and insurance companies.

For my research paper I decided to write about monopolies. I chose to write about monopolies because I wanted to learn more about them. No this type of monopoly is not a board game in which consumers engage in buying houses or property with fake money. Instead this type of monopoly is a firm that is the only seller of a good or service that does not have a close substitute. An example of a monopoly is natural gas company or Time Warner Cable or Microsoft and its Windows operating system. Although few people like monopolies and even though few companies are monopolies, the model of a monopoly can be useful. You see a monopoly is useful in analyzing situations in which firms agree to act together as if they were a monopoly. Monopolies are not illegal in the United States. What is illegal is actions taken by monopolies to limit competition. But there are times when one supplier in a market is better than a competitive market? Should the government work to protect that one supplier in a market?

Since the late nineteenth century, the federal government has challenged business practices and mergers that create or may create a monopoly in a particular market. Federal legislation has varied in effectiveness in terms of preventing anti-competitive mergers.

America’s health care is more expensive than other industrialized countries. A common practice among businesses to lower their costs is competition; it provides a healthy balance between businesses and consumer satisfaction. Although health care should not be a business, America has ignored the idea and importance of competition, creating the extreme prices. America’s universal healthcare

The opposing side received a 10% when using services of the State Bank in an ATM. The person claimed the activity to be the violation of Section one of the Sherman Antitrust Act. There the issue has to be considered from this perspective.

I think you explain the concept in a clear manner. I just want to add about the how antitrust laws prevent industries from becoming monopolies, Antitrust principles promote competition and rivalry among providers of a service or good. Hopefully increasing the supply will lead to the best allocation of resources, and lower prices, in contrast with anti-competitive industries that would force the consumers to deal with the lack of choices and may raise prices too. Some might say that the Affordable Care Act could resemble a monopoly due to the fact that it enourages healthcare coordination and integration, but I think that since the system currently shows a high level of dissagregation that needs to be corrected in order to optimize the services

As many other students can attest to I was quite young while this case was going on. Now

I feel that the United States government should have a larger role in our economy. I feel this because if there is a monopoly, other buisiness will not be able to stay open for very long. If there was a monopoly, they would be able to charge whatever they want for low quality goods. For example, Wal-Mart is kind of a monopoly. A lot of Mom and Pop who sell some of the same stuff as Wal-Mart are having to close down because more people are going to go to Wal-Mart.

The U.S. spending for healthcare has risen to astronomical heights leaving consumers and taxpayers to, yet again, pay more money for premiums and medication hikes. In 2000 average annual family premiums were $6,500 and by 2008 alone they almost doubled and by 2016 they have almost quadrupled (Forbes). It has become a monopolized borderline competition with less business environment. Many manufactures of medication state there is no set price to what the selling price will be for a medication. The selling price is determined by a supply and demand basis and what the insurance companies are willing to pay for it. Large providers are buying local locations to gain further leverage on the insurance providers. Often dropping them from their customer’s access if the prices are not paid. Very large insurance providers have more leverage for a better deal than smaller providers that most