Federal Trade Commission v. Butterworth Health Corp.

*1288 OPINION OF THE COURT

This is an action by plaintiff Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) for a preliminary injunction under § 13(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. § 53(b), to enjoin the proposed merger of two Grand Rapids hospitals operated by defendants Butter-worth Health Corporation and Blodgett Memorial Medical Center. The FTC contends the effect of the proposed merger “may be substantially to lessen competition,” contrary to § 7 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. § 18. The FTC asks the Court to preliminarily enjoin the proposed merger pending complete administrative scrutiny thereof under the antitrust laws.

During the week of April 22 through 26, 1996, the Court conducted a hearing on the FTC’s motion, receiving five full days of testimony and more than 900 exhibits. On May 30, 1996, the undersigned toured both hospitals in the company of counsel for both sides. The parties’ post-hearing briefing was completed in early July. The Court now renders its decision.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The City of Grand Rapids, in Kent County, is Michigan’s second largest city, with a 1994 estimated population of 190,395. The 1994 estimated population of the Grand Rapids Metropolitan Statistical Area (including Kent, Ottawa, Allegan and Muskegon Counties) is 984,977. There are four general acute care hospitals in Grand Rapids: But-terworth Hospital, owned and operated by defendant Butterworth Health Corporation (“Butterworth”), defendant Blodgett Memorial Medical Center (“Blodgett”), 1 St. Mary’s Hospital (“St. Mary’s”), and Metropolitan Hospital (“Metropolitan”). Butterworth operates 529 general acute care beds. Blodgett operates 328 general acute care beds. Both hospitals are nonprofit corporations and offer comprehensive medical and surgical services, generally classified as “primary,” “secondary,” and “tertiary” care services. 2

St. Mary’s and Metropolitan are smaller hospitals. St. Mary’s, a Catholic hospital, owned and operated by Mercy Health Services System, operates approximately 150 general acute care beds. It provides primary care inpatient services, some secondary care services, and limited tertiary care services. Metropolitan is an osteopathic hospital that operates approximately 101 general acute care beds. It also provides primary care and limited secondary care services, but no tertiary care services.

All parties agree that Butterworth and Blodgett are prospering, well-managed hospitals. At the end of May 1995, the governing boards of the two hospitals unanimously voted to merge the two organizations. The plan to merge was precipitated by a number of circumstances. Among these are Blod-gett’s confining location and desire to improve its facilities and services. Blodgett is situated on a 15-acre site in the middle of a well-established residential community. The site is two and one-half miles from a major freeway, limiting ready access for emergency vehicles, delivery vehicles and patients. Parking space is also severely limited. In addition, the configuration of the existing structures does not lend itself to the transformation of facilities demanded by the growing substitution of outpatient diagnostic and treatment services for inpatient care. Considering the expenses associated with maintaining and updating its existing facility and the fact that the same physical limitations would nonetheless remain, Blodgett decided to build a replacement hospital at a cost of $187 million at a location along the east-west freeway through Grand Rapids.

*1289 Announcement of this plan led to the formation of the Kent County Area Health Care Facilities Study Commission (“Hillman Commission”). The Commission consisted of 23 citizens who met 17 times during a ten-month period in 1998 to study the hospitals and health care needs of Kent County and to make recommendations for future hospital planning. The Commission issued its final report in May 1994, concluding in relevant part that Blodgett should not construct a replacement inpatient facility because sufficient space already exists in the community to enable adequate service of inpatient needs. The Commission recommended Blodgett consider “reorganizing its present facilities on-site, consolidating inpatient services with other area hospitals and/or moving appropriate ambulatory and support services offsite.”

Partly in response to the recommendations of the Hillman Commission, Blodgett and Butterworth began exploring the possibility of, and eventually agreed to, the proposed merger. Both hospitals contend that merger would enable them to avoid substantial capital expenditures and achieve significant operating efficiencies.

The FTC objects to the proposed merger and has moved for preliminary injunction. The hospitals have agreed not to merge prior to this Court’s ruling on the motion.

II. LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Section 7 of the Clayton Act provides in relevant part that “no person subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission shall acquire the whole or any part of the assets of another person ... where in any line of commerce ... in any section of the country, the effect of such acquisition may be substantially to lessen competition ...” 15 U.S.C. § 18. Defendant hospitals do not seriously question the FTC’s authority to challenge the proposed merger at this stage of the proceedings, which authority is presumed. See Federal Trade Comm’n v. Freeman Hosp., 69 F.3d 260, 266-67 (8th Cir.1995).

The FTC’s motion for preliminary injunction may be granted if the Court finds, upon weighing the equities and considering the FTC’s likelihood of ultimate success, that the injunction would be in the public interest. 15 U.S.C. § 53(b). To show a likelihood of ultimate success, the FTC must raise questions going to the merits so “serious, substantial, difficult and doubtful as to make them fair ground for thorough investigation, study, deliberation and determination by the FTC in the first instance and ultimately by the Court of Appeals.” Freeman Hosp., 69 F.3d at 267 (quoting Federal Trade Comm’n v. Nat’l Tea Co., 603 F.2d 694, 698 (8th Cir.1979)); Federal Trade Comm’n v. University Health Inc., 938 F.2d 1206, 1218 (11th Cir.1991). To succeed on its claim under § 7 of the Clayton Act, the FTC “must show a reasonable probability that the proposed transaction would substantially lessen competition in the future.” Id. “The current understanding of § 7 is that it forbids mergers that are likely to ‘hurt consumers, as by making it easier for the firms in the market to collude, expressly or tacitly, and thereby force price above or farther above the competitive level.’” United States v. Rockford Memorial Corp., 898 F.2d 1278, 1282-83 (7th Cir.1990) (emphasis added) (quoting Hospital Corp. of America v. Federal Trade Comm’n., 807 F.2d 1381, 1386 (7th Cir.1986)).

The FTC may make a prima facie case by showing statistically that the proposed merger would produce an entity controlling an undue percentage share of the relevant market, and would result in a significant increase in the concentration of power in that market. Id. Establishment of this prima facie case creates a presumption of illegality which defendant hospitals may rebut through evidence undermining the predictive value of the FTC’s statistics. Id. If defendant hospitals successfully rebut the presumption, the burden of producing additional evidence of anticompetitive effect shifts to the FTC, which retains the ultimate burden of persuasion at all times. Id. at 1218-19.

III. ANALYSIS

A. Prima Facie Case

1. Relevant Market

Prerequisite to establishment of the prima facie case by the FTC is definition of *1290 the “relevant market” within which the merged entity would have significant market power. Freeman Hosp., 69 F.3d at 268. The relevant market is defined by identifying competitors who could provide defendants’ customers with alternative sources for defendants’ services in the event defendants, as the merged entity, attempted to exercise their market power by raising prices above competitive levels. United States v. Mercy Health Services, 902 F.Supp. 968, 975 (N.D.Iowa 1995). A relevant market consists of two separate components, a product market and a geographic market. Freeman Hosp., 69 F.3d at 268. A properly defined market includes potential suppliers who can readily offer consumers a suitable alternative to defendants’ services. Mercy Health Services, 902 F.Supp. at 975-76. “A properly defined market excludes other potential suppliers (1) whose product is too different (product dimension of the market) or too far away (relevant geographic market), and (2) who are not likely to shift promptly to offer defendants’ customers a suitably proximate alternative.” Id. A geographic market is that geographic area “to which consumers can practically turn for alternative sources of the product and in which the antitrust defendants face competition.” Freeman Hosp., 69 F.3d at 268 (quoting Morgenstern v. Wilson, 29 F.3d 1291, 1296 (8th Cir.1994), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 1100, 130 L.Ed.2d 1068 (1995)).

a. Product Market

The FTC has identified two product markets in which the merged entity would possess substantial market power: (1) general acute care inpatient hospital services, and (2) primary care inpatient hospital services. The FTC characterizes general acute care inpatient hospital services as “a common host of distinct services and capabilities that are necessary to meet the medical, surgical, and other needs of inpatients, e.g., operating rooms, anesthesia, intensive care capabilities, 24-hour nursing care, lodging, and pharmaceuticals.” These services are said to represent a cluster of services and capabilities that are provided only by general acute care hospitals and for which there are no reasonable substitutes. That is, the FTC contends, there is no alternative source outside the realm of general acute care inpatient hospitals to which a patient can turn to obtain such services in response to a small but significant price increase.

Indeed, general acute care inpatient hospital services is a product market that has been commonly used to evaluate the competitive effects of hospital mergers. See Freeman Hosp., 69 F.3d at 268; University Health, 938 F.2d at 1211; Mercy Health Services, 902 F.Supp. at 976.

Defendants argue, however, that the product market cannot be so simply defined. While admitting there may be no substitute for the entire cluster of general acute care hospital services outside the realm of acute care hospitals, they argue, that outpatient services can be substituted for many inpatient services and that this substitutability should be deemed to act as a constraint upon the hospitals’ behavior, thereby justifying a broader product market including outpatient care providers as viable competitors. Defendants cite United States v. Carilion Health System, 707 F.Supp. 840, 844-45, 847 (W.D.Va.1989), aff'd, 892 F.2d 1042 (4th Cir.1989), where the court found that because some inpatient services can be obtained in an outpatient clinic or doctor’s office, providers of such outpatient services should be deemed to compete with hospitals in this respect and such outpatient services should be included in the relevant product market.

The argument is not compelling. See Rockford Memorial, supra, 898 F.2d at 1284 (J. Posner rejecting a similar argument). The evidence that consumers would use outpatient services as a substitute for some inpatient services in response to a small but significant increase in the prices of general acute care inpatient services is not substantial. Defendants’ own economic expert, David Eisenstadt, Ph.D., admits as much. Clearly, there has been a trend toward greater use of outpatient services for procedures traditionally performed on an inpatient basis. This trend appears to be fueled primarily by advances in medical knowledge and technology — allowing, for instance, certain surgical procedures to be performed less invasively— *1291 as well as advances in pharmacology. Thus, while outpatient treatment is certainly less costly than inpatient treatment, the growing use of outpatient services is not strictly responsive to economic incentives, but is a function of medical judgment, enabled by expanding treatment options. In other words, it does not appear plausible, based on the present record, that outpatient services not otherwise appropriately substitutable for acute care inpatient services would become so solely because of a small but significant increase in the price of the inpatient services.

Further, defendants’ innovative effort to demonstrate that employers and third-party payors might respond to a price increase for primary and secondary acute care services by steering outpatient and tertiary care patients away from the merged entity so as to inhibit or reverse such a price increase is not persuasive. While this eventuality is plausible, it is speculative and does not serve to defeat the FTC’s establishment of the relevant market.

The Court is satisfied, for purposes of the motion for preliminary injunction, that the FTC has adequately established that general acute care inpatient hospital services is a relevant product market.

The second product market identified by the FTC is primary care inpatient hospital services. The FTC defines these services as including basic or less complex services available at most general acute care hospitals, including normal childbirth, gynecology, pediatrics, general medicine and general surgical services. The FTC contends consideration of this line of services includes a greater number of hospitals that compete with defendants in connection with services for which there are no reasonable substitutes outside the realm of inpatient hospitals.

The evidentiary basis for this product market is relatively thin, but defendants’ objection, for vagueness, is even weaker. The Court is satisfied, based primarily on the testimony of the FTC’s economic expert, Keith Leffler, Ph.D., that primary care inpatient services is a relevant product market. Again, to the extent outpatient services may be substituted for some primary care inpatient services, the Court finds that such substitution is generally the product of medical judgment rather than purely economic, inducement. The Court thus rejects defendants’ contention that outpatient services should be deemed to expand the proffered primary care inpatient market.

b. Geographic Market

The second component of the relevant market the FTC must define with respect to each of the identified product markets is the geographic market. In order to meet its burden, the FTC must present evidence of practical alternative sources to which consumers of general acute care and primary care inpatient hospital services would turn if the merger were consummated and the merged entity raised prices beyond competitive levels. Determination of the relevant geographic markets is a pragmatic, highly fact-driven undertaking. Freeman Hosp., 69 F.3d at 271 n. 16.

The FTC contends the geographic area within which defendant hospitals compete with other hospitals in the provision of general acute care inpatient services is the Greater Kent County area. “Greater Kent County” is defined as including Grand Rapids, plus the area encompassed within a 30-mile radius of Grand Rapids, consisting of Kent County and portions of seven adjoining counties (southern Newaygo County, southwest Montcalm County, western Ionia County, northern Barry County, northern Allegan County, eastern Ottawa County, and eastern Muskegon County). Contained within this area are the four Grand Rapids hospitals and five smaller hospitals in primarily rural areas outside Kent County, all of which provide general acute care inpatient services: United Memorial Hospital in Greenville, Ionia Hospital in Ionia, Pennock Hospital in Hastings, Holland Community Hospital in Holland, and Zeeland Hospital in Zeeland.

This geographic market is derived fundamentally from patient flow data. Analysis of the patient flow data, the parties agree, begins with application of the “Elringa-Ho-garty test.” Using information from the Michigan Hospital Association to identify the residence by rip code of each patient admitted to Michigan hospitals, and applying *1292 the Elzinga-Hogarty test, it is possible to identify an area around defendant hospitals (1) from which most of their admitted patients come, and (2) within which most residents remain for hospital care. The relevant geographic market is identified when each of these two measures reaches a minimum threshold percentage; 75% representing a weak market, and 90% representing a strong market. In the FTC’s estimation, based on the testimony of Dr. Leffler, greater Kent County comprises approximately 106 zip code areas and contains nine hospitals, approximately 90% of whose patients come from within the area. Dr. Leffler also found that approximately 90% of residents within the area who obtained hospital care obtained it at hospitals within the area.

Thus, according to Dr. Leffler’s numbers, based on patient flow data from the recent past, greater Kent County represents a strong market. Defendant hospitals have not seriously challenged Dr. Leffler’s analysis of the patient flow data. They have argued, however, that the FTC should be required to define a geographic area that meets the “90/90 strong market” threshold, citing Federal Trade Comm’n v. Freeman Hosp., 911 F.Supp. 1213, 1218 (W.D.Mo.1995), aff 'd 69 F.3d 260 (8th Cir.1995). Defendants further argue, based on Dr. Lef-fler’s prehearing deposition testimony, that greater Kent County does not meet this threshold.

Yet, even assuming a strong market standard is appropriate, and even assuming Dr. Leffler’s prehearing testimony weakens his testimony given at the preliminary injunction hearing, the Court is satisfied that greater Kent County is, provisionally, the relevant geographic market for general acute care inpatient hospital services. Even if the El-zinga-Hogarty numbers for greater Kent County do not quite reach 90% — a proposition that has not been clearly established— they certainly exceed 85% and are sufficiently strong to define the relevant market for purposes of the present motion. See United States v. Pabst Brewing Co., 384 U.S. 546, 549, 86 S.Ct. 1665, 1667, 16 L.Ed.2d 765 (1966) (recognizing that geographic market need not be defined with “metes and bounds” precision); In Freeman Hosp., neither the district court nor the affirming circuit court expressly held that a 90/90 strong market is appropriate or required in assessing a hospital merger. Instead, they evaluated the relative strengths and weaknesses of the proposed geographic markets and adopted the stronger one. Moreover, defendants’ own economic expert, Dr. Eisenstadt, acknowledged in deposition that once the 75% threshold is surpassed, it is inappropriate to evaluate the strength of a proposed market simply on the basis of an arbitrary percentage cutoff. Consistent with the caselaw, he acknowledges that the geographic market determination must be pragmatic, based on consideration of all relevant data. Accordingly, the Court concludes the static patient flow data sufficiently strongly indicates that greater Kent County is the relevant geographic market.

Definition of the relevant geographic market does not stop here however. In addition to historical patient flow data, the Court must also consider evidence suggesting how consumers would respond to price increases by the merged entity. See Freeman Hosp., 69 F.3d at 268-69; Mercy Health Services, 902 F.Supp. at 978.

In support of its contention that a 5 to 10% price increase would not drive defendants’ patients to hospitals outside of greater Kent County, the FTC cites several indicators. The most persuasive of these are the views of consumers. See Bathke v. Casey’s Gen’l Stores, Inc., 64 F.3d 340, 346-47 (8th Cir.1995) (most important dynamic evidence is that indicating where consumers could practicably turn for alternative services to avoid doing business with the antitrust defendant). Representatives of major managed care organizations and major employers in Grand Rapids, who purchase health care services on behalf of their members and employees, testified they would not attempt to steer their members or employees, respectively, away from Grand Rapids hospitals in response to a 5 to 10% price increase by the merged entity. Representatives of both groups professed respect for the strong bias among their members and employees in favor of local health care due to perceived quality of care and *1293 convenience. Moreover, as noted by the FTC, consumers in Grand Rapids would appear to have little incentive to seek health care outside of Grand Rapids in response to a 5 to 10% price increase because defendant hospitals are presently among, the least costly hospitals in Michigan. Hence, traveling outside of the greater Kent County area to avoid doing business with the merged entity would result in little or no cost savings to consumers. In addition, the FTC has shown such outmigration would be resisted by patients due to physician loyalty, inasmuch as it could entail treatment in hospitals where their own treating physicians lack admitting privileges.

The dynamic evidence presented by the FTC is not conclusive. However, defendants have not persuasively refuted it or proffered evidence that more persuasively demonstrates the appropriateness of a different geographic market. Accordingly, for purposes of preliminary injunctive relief, the Court concludes the relevant geographic market for general acute care inpatient hospital services is the greater Kent County area, as defined by the FTC.

With respect to primary care inpatient hospital services, the FTC contends the relevant geographic market consists of the “immediate Grand Rapids area,” which encompasses approximately 70 zip code areas and consists essentially of all of Kent County, northwest Montcalm County, southern Ne-waygo County, eastern Ottawa County, northeast Allegan County, northwest Barry County and northwest Ionia County. The four Grand Rapids hospitals are the only hospitals contained within this area. Applying the Elzinga-Hogarty test to patient flow data, the FTC contends this area represents a 90/90 strong market. Additionally, the FTC has presented dynamic evidence similar to that cited above suggesting that consumers are unlikely to seek primary care inpatient services outside the immediate Grand Rapids area in order to avoid a 5 to 10% increase in prices.

Defendant hospitals’ challenge to the FTC’s static and dynamic evidence concerning the geographic market for primary care inpatient hospital services is also unavailing. Defendants question whether patients in the “immediate Grand Rapids area,” but outside of Kent County, might seek primary care in rural hospitals in order to avoid a 5 to 10% increase in primary care prices at defendant hospitals, but the supporting evidence is insubstantial and too speculative to undermine the FTC’s prima facie ease. Accordingly, for purposes of preliminary injunctive relief, the Court finds the FTC has adequately defined the relevant geographic market for primary care inpatient hospital services as the immediate Grand Rapids area.

Defendants have tried to undermine both proposed relevant markets through the testimony of Dr. Eisenstadt based on late-obtained employer and consumer surveys. Dr. Eisenstadt’s testimony suggests that a 5 to 10% price increase by the merged entity would lead to a sufficient substitution of alternative services from outside the proposed markets to make such an increase unprofitable. Hence, defendants argue, the proposed markets are not accurate and the FTC has not carried its burden of satisfactorily defining the relevant markets.

The Court rejects defendants’ argument for the following reasons. First, they have not proposed alternative relevant markets superior to those proposed by the FTC. As Judge Posner observed in Rockford Memorial, “it is always possible to take pot shots at a market definition.” 898 F.2d at 1278. He went on to find that the defendant hospitals’ pot shots did indeed reveal imperfections in the proposed market. Yet, the proposed market definition was upheld because it was less imperfect than the alternative. Here, defendants have not even proposed an alternative. In view of this void, the FTC’s proposed markets, though imperfect, are adequately defined for purposes of preliminary injunctive relief.

Second, Dr. Eisenstadt’s opinions, based on survey evidence suggesting potential product and geographic leakage of defendants’ business in response to a 5 to 10% price increase, ask the Court to evaluate market definition in a manner different from that traditionally employed in the FTC Merger Guidelines and by the courts. While Dr. Eisenstadt’s unconventional approach is *1294 not irrational, the Court is not satisfied that a departure from the norm is warranted in this ease.

Finally, the Court is not persuaded'that the survey evidence upon which Dr. Eisen-stadt’s opinions are based is sound. Some of the most critical survey questions are ambiguous in material ways and some of the responses yielded are of suspect reliability.

2. Market Concentration

Having adequately defined the relevant markets, the FTC must show the proposed merger would result in a significant increase in the concentration of power in the relevant markets and repose in the merged entity an undue share of the markets. See University Health, 938 F.2d at 1218. A transaction resulting in a high concentration of market power and creating, enhancing, or facilitating a potential that such market power could be exercised in anticompetitive ways is presumptively unlawful. Id.; United States v. Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., 866 F.2d 242, 246 (8th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 809, 110 S.Ct. 51, 107 L.Ed.2d 20 (1989). Analysis of the likelihood that a merger will have anticompetitive effects begins with assessment of concentration in the relevant market. United States v. General Dynamics Corp., 415 U.S. 486, 497, 94 S.Ct. 1186, 1193, 39 L.Ed.2d 530 (1974).

Market concentration is a function of the number of firms in the market and their respective market shares. In his testimony concerning market concentration, the FTC’s economic expert, Dr. Leffler, relied on thé Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (“HHI”) to measure concentration. The HHI is calculated by squaring the market share of each competing firm in a market and adding the resulting numbers. The HHI is the most prominent method of measuring market concentration, commonly used by the Justice Department, the FTC and the courts in evaluating proposed mergers. See University Health, 938 F.2d at 1211, n. 12; Federal Trade Comm’n v. PPG Ind. Inc., 798 F.2d 1500, 1502-06 (D.C.Cir.1986); Freeman Hosp., 911 F.Supp. 1213, 1221-22. Under the FTC Merger Guidelines, a post-merger HHI above 1800 is deemed to reflect a highly concentrated market, and a merger producing an increase in the HHI of more than 100 points is deemed likely to create or enhance market power or facilitate its exercise.

As a result of the proposed merger, Dr. Leffler estimated Butterworth and Blodgett would control 47 to 65% of the market for general acute care inpatient hospital services in greater Kent County, depending on whether market share is measured by licensed beds, discharges or inpatient revenues. He estimated that the post-merger HHI would range from 2767 to 4521, reflecting an increase of between 1064 and 1889 points. With respect to the primary care inpatient hospital market, Dr. Leffler estimated the merged entity' would control between 65 and 70% of the market. The post-merger HHI would rise to a number between 4506 and 5079, reflecting an increase of from 1675 to 2001 points. Dr. Leffler’s statistical calculations thus demonstrate that both relevant markets would be highly concentrated after the proposed merger.

Defendants do not contest Dr. Leffler’s HHI calculations. 3 In the event the proposed relevant markets are accepted by the Court, they apparently concede that the merger would result in high market concentration.

Therefore, the Court concludes the FTC has established its prima facie case that the proposed merger would violate § 7 of the Clayton Act. The FTC has statistically demonstrated that the proposed merger would result in a significant increase in the concentration of power in two relevant markets, and produce an entity controlling an undue percentage share of each of those markets. In order to prevent injunctive relief, defendants must rebut this prima facie case by showing under the facts of this case, notwithstanding the statistical evidence, that the proposed merger is not likely to result in anticompeti-tive effects.

*1295 B. Defendants’ Rebuttal — Anticompeti- tive Effects

1. Applicability of Presumption

Defendants begin their rebuttal by arguing that high concentration in the hospital industry should not be presumed to result in anticompetitive effects. Specifically, defendants contend that empirical proof does not support the presumption that high concentration of market power among nonprofit hospitals results in price increases. In Rockford Memorial, Judge Posner observed “[i]t is regrettable that antitrust cases are decided on the basis of theoretical guesses as to what particular market-structure characteristics portend for competition....” 898 F.2d at 1286. It would be preferable, he noted, for the courts to be able to evaluate studies on the actual effect of concentration on price in the hospital industry. Absent such evidence to the contrary, he concluded that the standard presumption should be deemed to apply in the hospital industry. In the meantime, defendants contend, they have identified the empirical evidence needed to demonstrate the nonapplicability of the presumption.

First, defendants cite an article authored by one of their economic experts, William J. Lynk, Ph.D., Nonprofit Hospital Mergers and the Exercise of Market Power, Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. XXXVIII (Oct. 1995), p. 437. Based on a cross-sectional analysis of California hospitals, Dr. Lynk reached the following conclusion, stated in the final sentence of the article: “Relative to for-profit hospitals, private nonprofit hospitals in this sample have a significantly lower association between higher market shares and higher prices, and on balance increased nonprofit market share is associated with lower, not higher, prices.” Id., p. 459. Dr. Lynk speculated that the effect of merger on price may be negative for nonprofit hospitals because “mergers create the potential for the creation of economic efficiencies, through the consolidation of clinical services and through other means.” Id. at 458.

In addition, Dr. Lynk undertook an evaluation of hospital service pricing data obtained from third-party payors in Michigan. In his deposition, Dr. Lynk described this analysis as essentially a replication of his earlier study of California nonprofit hospitals. Consistent therewith, he concluded that in Michigan, too, higher hospital concentration is associated with lower nonprofit hospital prices. Again, Dr. Lynk: opined that this unexpected phenomenon may be due to lower costs in concentrated markets attributable to greater coordination of activities among hospitals and greater avoidance of duplicative equipment and other capital expenditures.

In response, Dr. Leffler on behalf of the FTC evaluated the same Michigan data and obtained similar results concerning the relationship between market concentration and pricing levels. Dr. Leffler went further, however, and found a positive correlation between market concentration and profit margins. Dr. Leffler reached the conclusion, not inconsistent with Dr. Lynk’s, that more highly concentrated markets could be home to both lower prices and higher profit margins due to lower costs. Dr. Leffler speculated that these lower costs in more highly concentrated markets may be due to circumstances other than market concentration and may, for instance, reflect the “ruralness” of markets that tend to be more highly concentrated, costs being generally lower in rural areas.

The experts may and no doubt will debate for some time the possible causes of these unexpected empirical findings. They are in agreement at this stage, however, that high market concentration among nonprofit hospitals does not correlate positively with higher prices. Defendants have thus demonstrated good reason to question the applicability of the traditional presumption that a significant increase in market concentration will lead to higher prices in connection with the merger of nonprofit hospitals.

Consistent with the above findings, defendants also challenge the FTC charge that hospitals exercise their market power to raise prices for specific services for which they face little or no competition. Dr. Lynk, upon evaluating pricing data received from Healthcare 2000, a healthcare purchasing coalition representing over 80 Grand Rapids area employers, which has contracts with all four Grand Rapids hospitals, concluded there *1296 is no positive correlation between market domination for a particular service and higher prices for that service. In fact, again, he found a negative correlation. That is, market dominance for a particular service is correlated with lower average relative, prices in Grand Rapids.

The FTC does not challenge Dr. Lynk’s findings in this regard, but questions their significance, arguing that Dr. Lynk failed to consider the extent to which Butterworth and Blodgett have refused to grant discounts to managed care companies in connection with services for which either has had a local monopoly. The FTC argues that, even though market dominance may not be positively correlated with higher prices, it is correlated with smaller managed care discounts, which reflect anticompetitive effect emanating from exercise of market power. The FTC anticipates that the proposed merger creates an appreciable danger that this sort of anticompetitive effect would be expanded.

Nonetheless, with respect to the proposition for which they are offered, Dr. Lynk’s findings stand unrebutted: among nonprofit hospitals in California, Michigan and Grand Rapids, market concentration appears to be positively correlated not with higher prices, but with lower prices. The effect of increased concentration on the growth and influence of managed care organizations is addressed infra.

2. Nonprofit Status

Defendants argue the above findings demonstrate that nonprofit hospitals do not operate in the same manner as profit maximizing businesses. This is especially true, defendants contend, where as here, the boards of the merging hospitals are comprised of community business leaders who have a direct stake in maintaining high quality, low cost hospital services. Dr. Lynk made mention of this phenomenon in his study of California hospitals: “It may well be that a nonprofit hospital organization whose only function is the provision of hospital services to a well-defined population, and whose governing board effectively represents that same population, looks — and probably acts — a lot more like a consumer cooperative than a creator of monopoly resource misallocation.” Lynk, Nonprofit Hospital Mergers, supra, p. 458.

In Freeman Hosp., the impact of this dynamic was recognized by the district court with reference to another article by Dr. Lynk:

Arguably, a private nonprofit hospital that is sponsored and directed by the local community is similar to a consumer cooperative. It is highly unlikely that a cooperative will arbitrarily raise prices merely to earn higher profits because the owners of such an organization are also its consumers. See Henry B. Hansmann, The Role of Nonprofit Enterprise, 89 Yale L.J. 835, 889 (1980). Similarly, if a nonprofit organization is controlled by the very people who depend on it for service, there is no rational economic incentive for such an organization to raise its prices to the monopoly level even if it has the power to do so. William J. Lynk, Property Rights and the Presumptions of Merger Analysis, Antitrust Bulletin, 363, 377 (1994). In the hospital context, this rationale applies to nonprofit hospitals whose boards are effectively controlled by persons representing the interests of hospital consumers or other groups that desire competitively-priced hospital services. Id.

911 F.Supp. at 1222. See also, Carilion, supra, 707 F.Supp. at 849 (recognizing that, although nonprofit status does not provide an exemption from antitrust scrutiny, it is a factor weighing in favor of finding a proposed merger reasonable).

The FTC counters by citing University Health, 938 F.2d at 1224; Rockford Memorial, 898 F.2d at 1285; and Mercy Health Services, 902 F.Supp. at 989. In all three cases, the courts refused to find merging hospitals’ nonprofit status, alone, sufficient to rebut the government’s prima facie case. The courts thus enforced the traditional rule that nonprofit enterprises are not exempt from the antitrust laws, but implied openness to considering nonprofit status as a relevant consideration if supported by other evidence that anticompetitive effects would not be produced.

Here, such evidence exists in the form of Dr. Lynk’s findings that market concentra *1297 tion among nonprofit hospitals is not correlated with higher prices, but with lower prices. This correlation is acknowledged by the FTC’s Dr. Leffler, although the causes thereof are a matter of speculative dispute. Such evidence is also presented in this case through the testimony of the chairman of each hospital’s board, with whom the merger idea originated. David Wagner is chairman of the Blodgett board and both chief executive officer and chairman of the board at Old Kent Financial Corporation, one of the largest and most successful bank holding companies in the Midwest, and one of the largest employers in the Grand Rapids area. Richard M. DeVos is chairman of the board at Butterworth and is co-founder of the largest employer in the Grand Rapids area, the Amway Corporation, one of the largest direct retail distributors in the world. They both testified convincingly that the proposed merger is motivated by a common desire to lower health care costs and improve the quality of care.

The FTC does not challenge defendants’ assertion that board members who are business leaders and community leaders have community interests at heart. The FTC does not allege that community board members would exercise