Antitrust trial against large California health system begins

Opening arguments in an antitrust lawsuit against Northern California’s largest health system begin today. A lawsuit filed in 2014 alleges that Sacramento-based Sutter Health, which operates 24 hospitals and 35 outpatient clinics in the state, used its market share to inflate health services prices. The suit — brought by 1,500 other California companies and later joined by state Attorney General Xavier Becerra — also accuses the company of requiring health care providers to either sign with all of Sutter’s facilities or none of them, a tactic the plaintiffs say also ensured that employers and insurers couldn’t negotiate lower prices at individual hospitals. Sutter Health was among the first health systems to adopt such policies: How the current trial plays out could have implications for others nationwide that have since done the same.