Patients v. Hospitals: Why Define Markets At All if Every Market Satisfies the SSNIP Test?

Hospital merger cases are won or lost on geographic market definition.  The Third Circuit’s recent finding that it is appropriate to define geographic markets based on patient location will likely incentivize the FTC to define such geographic markets more frequently in future hospital merger litigations.  We consider the implications of defining a geographic market based on patient location and highlight a key shortcoming of this approach: since virtually any candidate geographic mar