Trump revokes executive order on competition: 5 things for hospital leaders to know
President Donald Trump on Aug. 13 revoked Executive Order 14036, a 2021 directive issued under the Biden administration aimed at promoting competition across the U.S. economy, including healthcare.
Five things to know:
1. Executive Order 14036 ((Promoting Competition in the American Economy) is no longer in effect. The Biden-era order, signed in July 2021, had instructed federal agencies to take a more aggressive stance against consolidation across industries. In healthcare, this meant increased scrutiny of mergers and acquisitions, heightened oversight of hospital consolidation and new rules designed to curb what the administration described as anti-competitive practices by payers and providers. President Trump’s Aug. 13 order formally revoked the directive, citing the need to reduce regulatory burdens and allow markets to function more freely.
2. Federal regulators welcomed the revocation. Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson said the repeal removes “top-down competition regulations” that were hostile toward mergers and acquisitions. He said the Trump-Vance administration will instead focus on enforcing existing antitrust laws passed by Congress.
The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division echoed the support. Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater said the revocation allows regulators to recalibrate federal competition policy, focusing on “empowering the American people in the free markets” rather than prescribing outcomes.
3. Regulators are shifting their merger review strategy. The Antitrust Division said it has resumed granting early termination for uncontroversial Hart-Scott-Rodino Act merger reviews and reinstated targeted settlements through consent decrees. Both practices were paused under the Biden administration. For hospitals and health systems, this suggests a faster review process and potentially fewer barriers for deals deemed noncontroversial.
4. What this means for hospitals. The repeal could ease regulatory pressure on mergers and affiliations, particularly for smaller or regional deals that do not raise immediate antitrust concerns. However, regulators have emphasized that existing antitrust laws remain in force, meaning large transactions that significantly reshape markets may still face scrutiny. Hospitals pursuing strategic partnerships should still expect case-by-case enforcement but may find the overall regulatory environment more favorable to consolidation.
5. The repeal coincides with a major healthcare merger. The announcement came just one day before UnitedHealth Group completed its $3.3 billion acquisition of Baton Rouge, La.-based Amedisys, a home health and hospice provider with more than 500 care centers in 38 states and Washington, D.C. The deal, originally announced in 2023, makes Amedisys a wholly owned UnitedHealth subsidiary and removes its stock from Nasdaq trading.
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