Josh Hawley asks FTC to probe Amazon One Medical deal
[ad_1]
In a letter despatched to the Federal Trade Commission this past 7 days, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley, R-Mo., requested the regulatory agency to search a lot more closely at the proposed $3.9 billion merger in between Amazon and 1 Health-related.
“I comprehend that the FTC is at the moment engaged in several endeavours to overcome America’s accelerating financial concentration and the electricity of tech behemoths,” Hawley wrote. “Yet, I urge you to prioritize a looking evaluation of this certain transaction.”
The acquisition would “supply Amazon with access to enormous tranches of client information,” claimed the senator.
When he acknowledged that HIPAA and other privacy guidelines may possibly “thwart the worst opportunity abuses,” Hawley also pointed out that “loopholes exist in each legal framework.”
Some scenarios, “after written off as scaremongering fictions, are now a pretty actual chance,” he mentioned. “For occasion, if an specific is identified with large blood force by a 1 Health care health care provider, will he later on be marketed around-the-counter blood pressure prescription drugs any time he outlets at Whole Foodstuff Marketplace?”
There are at present no Food and drug administration-approved OTC drugs for hypertension.
Hawley also reported the offer would even further enhance Amazon’s industry dominance, perhaps reshaping the electric power dynamic of the most important care space.
“It doesn’t matter if the main care marketplace as this sort of is presently competitive: by getting its hand in dozens of more compact marketplaces, Amazon positions itself to eventually arise as the dominant player in each, as cross-subsidization allows Amazon to provide products and services at a decline and facts-pushed network results allow for Amazon to market at a degree its competitors can’t match.”
He shut his letter by inquiring the FTC to discover responses to several thoughts, such as:
-
What, if any, firewalls does Amazon intend to build concerning affected person details and retail client information?
-
What products does Amazon intend to establish in the wake of this acquisition?
“Americans’ privacy and security are now on the line in a wholly new way,” Hawley wrote. “Amazon shouldn’t be allowed to get its way into this business.”
Mike Miliard is government editor of Healthcare IT Information.
Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN
E-mail: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.
[ad_2]
Resource hyperlink