US: Hospitals’ exemption from local antitrust laws under attack from Virginia senator

According to the Daily Press on Wednesday, January 24, Senator Frank Wagner asked colleagues permission to file a bill that would hit on profit hospitals’ exemption from Virginia’s little-known anti-monopoly law.

Wagner told fellow senators that he wanted to introduce legislation to address an exemption in the antitrust law, without mentioning hospitals or the big weight they swing in the halls of the General Assembly.

It was only after the Senate adjourned for the day that he let slip that the bill he plans to file would end nonprofit hospitals’ exemption from Virginia’s Antitrust Act, an obscure body of state law barely touched since its codification in 1974.

The move took the state hospital association by surprise. Even by the end of the day, Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association spokesman Julian Walker said the group had had no word about the measure or Wagner’s intentions and couldn’t comment.

Full Content: Daily Press

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