July 2026 | Derek DeLia, Joel Cantor, Bingxiao Wu, Yuhao Zheng | Making Sense of New Jersey Hospital Consolidation in a Challenging Policy Environment
Hospital consolidation is drawing more and more attention from healthcare scholars, policymakers, and the media. This consolidation includes hospital mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and the growth of large, economically powerful hospital networks. Emerging evidence about consolidation raises multiple concerns about diminished healthcare access and health outcomes, especially for the most vulnerable populations.
Hospital consolidation enhances hospitals’ bargaining position with private insurers, which multiple studies have shown leads to higher privately negotiated prices for hospital services. Prior work by part of our blog team (Wu, Cantor) found that New Jersey hospitals in highly concentrated markets enjoyed significantly higher profit margins. Although competition occurs most often within a shared market area, recent research shows that hospital acquisitions that occur across markets also have a strong upward effect on prices.
As we have noted in prior blogs, hospital consolidation and concomitant price increases have important implications for healthcare affordability in New Jersey. In this blog, we delineate the scale and scope of hospital consolidation in New Jersey, including important aspects that cross state boundaries. The extent of consolidation has urgent public policy considerations.