Richard Scheffler is a professor of Economics and Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a prominent health economist recognized for his research on the efficiency, equity, and sustainability of health systems globally. He has worked on the reform of health systems in various countries, evaluating policies and proposing solutions to improve access to healthcare and reduce health inequalities. His academic work includes important theoretical contributions on health financing and resource distribution. Additionally, he has published numerous influential articles and books in the field of health economics, being a key figure in the development of public policies aiming for fairer and more accessible health systems.

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Abstract:

A decade’s worth of evidence supports troubling findings that private equity business practices have a negative impact on competition in healthcare and on patients. A new white paper, produced by experts at the American Antitrust Institute (AAI) and UC Berkeley, calls for immediate attention to the role that private equity investment plays in harming patients and impairing the functioning of the healthcare industry. In this groundbreaking new white paper, Soaring Private Equity Investment in the Healthcare Sector: Consolidation Accelerated, Competition Undermined, and Patients at Risk, AAI’s Laura Alexander and Professor Richard Scheffler of The Nicholas C. Petris Center on Health Care Markets and Consumer Welfare at UC Berkeley detail the emerging threat posed by private equity investment in healthcare markets. The report documents the astronomical growth of private equity’s investment in healthcare, which focuses on short-term profits and not the wellbeing of patients, and its consequences. The major conclusions include that private equity investment has grown to nearly $750 billion in the last decade and is poised to increase even further due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The private equity business model is fundamentally incompatible with a stable, competitive healthcare system, and its focus on short-term revenue generation and consolidation undermines competition, destabilizes healthcare markets, and acts as an anticompetitive catalyst, amplifying and accelerating concentration and anticompetitive practices. Private equity funds operate under the public and regulatory radar, leaving the vast majority of private equity deals in healthcare unreported, unreviewed, and unregulated. The report concludes that urgent action is needed to oversee, investigate, and understand the impact of private equity on patients and healthcare markets, including changes to antitrust reporting requirements and increased oversight of healthcare mergers.