ProPublica: A Unique Oregon Law Allows It to Block Healthcare Deals. In Five Years, the State Hasn't Done So Once.

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Lawmakers said that giving the state oversight would stop multibillion-dollar deals from reducing care and increasing costs. Some who supported the law say it hasn’t been nearly as effective as they hoped.

by Rob Davis
May 14, 2026, 5:00 am

Dana Gibbon was 18 weeks pregnant with her first baby when her OB-GYN told her at an appointment that she wouldn’t be her doctor anymore.

OB-GYN services were ending at the clinic in Corvallis, a college town of 60,000 in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The doctor said all of the Corvallis Clinic’s OB-GYNs were resigning.

“We have appreciated the opportunity to participate in your care and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause,” the clinic said in a subsequent letter to patients.

The closure of the Corvallis OB-GYN practice came two years after a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, the country’s largest health insurance company, bought the clinic. The subsidiary, Optum Oregon, cited a national shortage of physicians that made it hard to replace doctors who left and increased the workload for those who remained.

https://www.propublica.org/article/oregon-healthcare-mergers-oversight-law

How many governments in the free world have a system like this??