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FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

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Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#21

Post by AlotOfReading »

nominusllc wrote: post #5

I don't understand how some ( to me ) obvious anticompetitive corps seem to go unnoticed, but in this case veterinary clinics are receiving scrutiny.

My partner works in this industry and in fact has friends that are affected by this merger. While the FTC can and does have the ability to do many things simultaneously, the current situation in the vet industry is dire. Corporate vets are more profitable (through price-gouging), have a virtual stranglehold on increasingly limited labor pools, and are pretty much the only ones that can afford to invest in specialty medicine like emergency clinics these days. The FTC has been taking a firmer watch over the consolidation in recent years, but the trend is very clearly towards the extinction of locally run, family-owned practices that serve the community.

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#22

Post by jmyeet »

The term "end stage capitalism" (or the more palatable "late capitalism") I've heard a lot recently and things like this really make me wonder.

The voracious and insatiable appetite for profit has led to some really disgusting practices for example:

- Goldman Sachs driving up food prices, which quite literally kills people, for profit [1]

- Hedge funds buying up trailer parks and jacking up the rates [2]

- Medical price gouging (eg epipens, insulin) [3];

- Abbott shutting down a baby formula plant that was poisoning infants to essentially end-run a possible investigation [4] where ultimately the government begged (paid?) them to reopen it; and

- Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a massive boon to the US military-industrial complex, a sector that might otherwise have found hard times thanks to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ending.

If you look at these you see regulatory failure at pretty much every level thanks to the revolving door and resulting regulatory capture by these industries.

Compare this to China, who executed two people found responsible for a tainted milk scandal [5].

It's hard not to see just how much rent-seeking and monopoly-creating goes on in the modern economy. When is it enough?

[1]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/04/27/how-goldman-sachs-creat...

[2]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/15/what-happens-w...

[3]: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/12/31/7926175...

[4]: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...

[5]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/24/china-executes...

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#23

Post by 3maj »

bombcar wrote: post #4
lordleft wrote: post #2

Interesting. I'd like to see more action against the financialization of many other industries / domains, like healthcare and even housing, that I feel are not well served by a purely-market driven perspective. One wonders what the Private Equity firm's intention was here.

There's a number of these where there's a desire to make it appear there is competition, but actually all are owned by the same conglomerate. I would be 0% surprised if similar things haven't been done or tried in optometry, dentists, etc.

For the last 5-10 years one of the most popular strategies for mid-sized PE firms has been the dental clinic roll up.

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#24

Post by Xeoncross »

markovbot wrote: post #6
baggy_trough wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

ah yes, a more profit driven healthcare sector, exactly what this country needs

Healthcare was more affordable back when individuals payed for it.

The problem was that some could not, so we introduced insurance.

At this point no one can afford it anymore without insurance. So our fix for one problem created a new problem.

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#25

Post by mberning »

It took 12 hours for my dog to be seen at the emergency vet I went to recently. It was brutal. And that was the only one that would agree to have us come in. It was over an hour a way. All the local clinics said don’t come in unless it was a last minute euthanization or the animal was unresponsive. Crazy.

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#26

Post by SoftTalker »

Retric wrote: post #9
whimsicalism wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shielding people from the actual prices does raise the actual prices typically.

Yet somehow market driven healthcare is almost universally more expensive, it’s like there are some monopolistic effects involved. For example several attempts to privatize the VA failed because of the vast increase in costs.

Yes, when one mega-organization owns most or all of the health care providers in an area (which is very often the case) it's a monopoly and there is no market competition.

Where I live for example, from a cost perspective I can't really shop around because there are no individual practices anymore. They (and the clincs and the hospitals) are all owned by the same vast medical congolmerate. It's completely anticompetitive, yet the FTC has not shown any concern AFAIK.

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#27

Post by alistairSH »

baggy_trough wrote: post #3
lordleft wrote: post #2

Interesting. I'd like to see more action against the financialization of many other industries / domains, like healthcare and even housing, that I feel are not well served by a purely-market driven perspective. One wonders what the Private Equity firm's intention was here.

Quoted post unavailable.

would

You're 100% confident in that assessment?

I'm not going to claim less regulation could help control prices. The typical certificate of need process seems like something that could go away without much problem (I find it unlikely anybody would invest in a new hospital or whatever other facility without being relatively confident there's a market). But, regulation on drugs and devices probably should remain.

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#28

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jmyeet wrote: post #22

The term "end stage capitalism" (or the more palatable "late capitalism") I've heard a lot recently and things like this really make me wonder. The voracious and insatiable appetite for profit has led to some really disgusting practices for example: - Goldman Sachs driving up food prices, which quite literally kills people, for profit [1] - Hedge funds buying up trailer parks and jacking up the rates [2] - Medical pr…

> term "end stage capitalism" (or the more palatable "late capitalism")

The problem with this language is it implies inevitability and a near-term conclusion. Neither is a given.

You've correctly identified regulatory failure (specifically, our inattention to competition) at the root of these problems. Fighting that takes effort. When I hear the terms late-stage or end-stage capitalism, I hear nouveau nihilism. The situation is far from unfixable. And the present state can persist and fester for generations more.

An analogy might be found in a deteriorating factory. Management complains the factory is in its final stages. The foreman, meanwhile, sits bewildered next to a list of neglected maintenance. This wasn’t inevitable. It still isn’t inevitable. We’re just choosing not to fix it.

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