STAT+: Sutter Health will pay nearly $230 million to settle class-action antitrust case
Sutter Health has agreed to pay about $230 million to settle a federal class-action lawsuit accusing it of anticompetitive behavior
Sutter Health has agreed to pay about $230 million to settle a federal class-action lawsuit accusing the Northern California health system of anticompetitive behavior that raised costs for millions of Californians.
Both sides agreed to settle the case, originally filed in 2012, on the eve of trial last month. At the time, the monetary amount hadn’t been finalized. The $228.5 million will be split across the more than 3 million individuals and businesses that accused the nonprofit health care giant of driving up the amount they paid in premiums for themselves or their employees. The plaintiff class includes everyone from individuals and small businesses like a pool company, to huge employers like the University of California and the city and county of San Francisco.
It’s a smaller amount than the $575 million that Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter agreed to pay to settle almost identical allegations in a case California’s attorney general brought to the finish line in 2019. But the new settlement is slightly larger when viewed with respect to the amount the plaintiffs were estimated to have overpaid because of Sutter’s conduct. In the California case, the plaintiffs overpaid by an estimated $1.2 billion, with the settlement representing 48% of that total. In the federal case, the settlement represents 53% of the $411 million the plaintiffs were estimated to have overpaid.
