New regulatory task force has ‘no brainer’ goal to improve U.S. health care, FTC chief says

Better patient care through fair market competition is the goal of a new Healthcare Task Force formed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Commission Chair Andrew N. Ferguson announced the new panel in March 2026. The move follows an executive order from President Donald J. Trump directing the FTC to help create a "more competitive, innovative, affordable and higher quality health care system."

Ferguson used a colloquialism to describe a task that may be easier said than done.

“Making America’s health care system work better — for patients, workers, and taxpayers — is a no-brainer,” he wrote in his March 20 memorandum supporting the directive to create the task force. FTC’s Bureau of Competition, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Bureau of Economics, Office of Policy Planning and Office of Technology will use a "coordinated, integrated approach" toward enforcement, he wrote.

"The industry constitutes an extraordinary (18%) of our country's GDP, yet too many Americans struggle to get the care they need at prices they can afford," Ferguson wrote in his March 20, 2026, memorandum. "Consolidation and anticompetitive conduct have distorted the economic landscape in many health care markets."

The consequences of that distortion, Ferguson wrote, include higher prices, decreased quality, reduced access and transparency, and stifled innovation. He specifically called out the effects on vulnerable populations, including rural communities, seniors and veterans, who he said lack access to affordable and convenient care. Anticompetitive regulations, he added, further undermine incentives to lower costs and improve quality.

Structure and mandate

The task force will be co-chaired by one representative each from the Bureau of Competition and the Bureau of Consumer Protection, with co-chairs designated by their respective bureau directors. Membership will include at least three representatives from each of the FTC's three bureaus, along with one member each from the Office of Policy Planning, the Office of Technology and the Office of General Counsel.

The full task force will meet at least monthly and report to the chairman on a quarterly basis.

Its mandate includes leading targeted enforcement and advocacy initiatives, developing agency-wide investigative strategies, identifying opportunities to file amicus briefs and statements of interest in relevant legal proceedings, and conducting ongoing reviews to spot emerging issues and new priority areas, according to plans.

A key feature of the task force will be its knowledge-sharing function. Through the structure, the agency's teams will share intelligence, case leads, third-party sources and relationships with other agencies and stakeholders, according to the memorandum. The task force will also seek to expand its membership to include the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Justice Department, with the goal of bringing in agencies with complementary roles and relevant expertise.

Noncompetes in health care: How do physicians feel?

The task force announcement did not touch on noncompete clauses in employment contracts, which have become contentious in health care and other fields. Ferguson and Commissioner Mark R. Meador hosted an online webinar with two physicians among the invited guests to discuss their experiences with noncompete agreements.

The panelists’ experiences were bad. They described restrictions that limited their abilities to seek out work. In the case of the doctors, the contracts hurt patient care by limiting the physicians’ options for working in medical practices.

Despite the passionate feelings of those involved, physicians hoping for sweeping action by the FTC were disappointed. Ferguson and Meador agreed noncompetes at times impose egregious limits on workers, but said they would not enact broad regulations. Instead, they will consider any challenges to noncompetes on a case-by-case basis.

Medical Economics readers also feel strongly about how noncompete agreements can affect the work circumstances of physicians. Here are exclusive survey results from a Medical Economics survey earlier this year.

Building on recent enforcement actions

Apart from the noncompete agreements, Ferguson cited a series of recent FTC actions as examples of the work the task force will build upon.

Among the most significant was a settlement with Express Scripts Inc. and its affiliated entities requiring the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) to adopt business practice changes expected to lower patients' out-of-pocket drug costs, including for insulin, by up to $7 billion over 10 years. The settlement also calls for directing new revenue to community pharmacies each year and was described in the memorandum as advancing the Trump administration's key health care priorities.

The FTC also successfully challenged medical device maker Edwards Lifesciences' proposed acquisition of JenaValve, preserving competition in the U.S. market for transcatheter aortic valve replacement, or TAVR, devices used to treat aortic regurgitation, a heart condition in which the aortic valve does not close tightly and allows blood to flow backward into the heart.

In another merger case, the FTC blocked a proposed combination of Alcon and Lensar, which the memorandum described as the two most significant competitors in the market for laser systems used in femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery, or FLACS. After FTC staff identified substantial competitive concerns — noting the companies had been engaged in active price competition and that their rivalry had spurred innovation — Alcon and Lensar abandoned the deal.

The commission also took aim at what it described as improper patent listings that were shielding brand-name drug products from generic competition. The FTC filed challenges against dozens of device patents it said were improperly listed in connection with brand-name epinephrine autoinjectors and drugs for asthma, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD — a group of lung conditions that obstruct airflow and make breathing difficult. The effort led Teva Pharmaceuticals to remove more than 200 patent listings from the Food and Drug Administration's Orange Book, the agency's reference database of approved drugs and their associated patents.

On the consumer protection front, the FTC recovered $145 million in consumer redress from companies it alleged misled consumers seeking health insurance into purchasing indemnity, telemedicine and health discount plans. In January, the commission also obtained a temporary restraining order against a separate company it alleges caused tens of millions of dollars in harm through deceptive marketing of health care plans.

The FTC additionally resolved charges against substance-abuse treatment facilities accused of using telemarketers to impersonate other facilities and steer patients away from locally recommended programs toward their own, securing $2.4 million in consumer redress. Separately, the commission took action against a telehealth company it said used deceptive cost and weight-loss claims, along with fake reviews and testimonials, to market membership programs with hidden terms and conditions.

The agency also sent refund checks to consumers who purchased products falsely marketed as treatments for conditions including COVID-19, cancer and Parkinson's disease.