The reason you want smaller entities in private healthcare is that is reduces the size and impact of bankruptcy risk. Same reason you want smaller banks. If yo

The reason you want smaller entities in private healthcare is that is reduces the size and impact of bankruptcy risk. Same reason you want smaller banks. If you want competition to work you have to have sufficient excess capacity in the system to allow entities to fail and fail fast. Not so much a case of big enough to cope, but small enough not to matter that much in the grand scheme of things. That ought to be the rule of thumb for any competition authority - if this new entity went pop, would we notice? Capitalism without the threat of bankruptcy is like Catholicism without the threat of hellfire. It no longer works as a concept.