Listen now (26 mins) | Listen Now In 2009, or the year before the Affordable Care Act passed, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (used by the FTC and the DoJ) defined hospital ownership as "highly concentrated" in over 80% of the 380 MSAs (Metropolitan Statistical Areas). Since passage of the ACA, a law that among other things strongly encourages care continuity and coordination between/among providers, hospital mergers and acquisitions continued unabated with over 100 in the past year alone (and over 500 between 2007 and 2012). This matters because studies commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and others show hospital market consolidation generally results in higher prices.