Washington, D.C. – Today, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Representative Val Hoyle (D-OR-04) introduced the bicameral Patients Over Profits Act, a groundbreaking bill that will force health insurers to divest certain Medicare providers within two years. The legislation aims to eliminate the structural conflicts of interest that have incentivized insurers to deny medically-necessary care to vulnerable seniors, consolidate formerly independent physician practices, and drive up costs to taxpayers. In response, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement endorsing the bill.

“Large healthcare conglomerates that own insurers and doctors’ practices jack up prices and reduce the quality of care seniors receive,” said Emma Freer, Senior Policy Analyst for Healthcare at the American Economic Liberties Project. “We applaud Senator Merkley and Representative Hoyle for introducing the Patients Over Profits Act to ban this integration and take an important step toward breaking up Big Medicine.”

The bill is co-sponsored by Senator Warren, along with Reps. Pat Ryan, and Pramila Jayapal — all of whom spoke at Economic Liberties’ 2025 Anti-Monopoly Summit where healthcare constituted a major portion of the programming.

The The Patients Over Profit Act would:

• Prevent insurers and their subsidiaries from owning a Medicare Part B or Part C provider. Medicare Part B covers most doctor visits, outpatient care, and preventive services. Medicare Part C, more commonly known as Medicare Advantage, is administered by private insurers as an alternative to traditional Medicare Parts A and B. (Medicare Part A covers inpatient hospital care.)
• Requires insurers and their subsidiaries that own Medicare Part B or C providers to divest them within up to two years.
• Authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Justice Antitrust Division, Federal Trade Commission, and state attorneys general to bring a civil action against suspected violators.
• Prevents HHS from contracting with Medicare Advantage insurers that also own Medicare Part B or Part C providers.

Insurers are incentivized to vertically integrate with Medicare providers for many reasons, including to raise costs, deny care, interfere with physicians’ clinical autonomy, steer patients toward their subsidiary providers, and skirt regulations meant to cap overhead spending.

UnitedHealth Group – the country’s largest health insurer, Medicare Advantage plan provider, and physician employer – is the poster child for this business model, which has since spread across the industry. In recent years, United has purchased two large independent physician practices in Oregon, with disastrous results. For instance, since being acquired by United in 2020, Oregon Medical Group has experienced an exodus of physicians and stopped providing OB-GYN services, leaving patients stranded without care. More recently, United exploited a crisis of its own making – the 2024 cyberattack on its subsidiary Change Healthcare, which drove countless physician practices into cash-flow crises – by acquiring the financially distressed Corvallis Clinic. Later that same year, Stat News reported that United pays its affiliated providers more than twice average market rates, driving costs up to pad its own profits.

These harms are especially apparent in Medicare Advantage, which now covers more than half of Medicare patients. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission estimates that the program will cost taxpayers 20% more per patient – or $84 billion – than traditional Medicare in 2025, despite denying claims at a much higher rate.

Read “Medicare Advantage and Vertical Consolidation in Health Care” here. 

Watch the Anti-Monopoly Summit here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.