FTC Announces New Health Care Task Force

In a development likely to ramp up regulatory pressure on an industry already under significant federal scrutiny, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Andrew Ferguson recently directed leaders across his agency to launch a team dedicated to cooperatively advancing enforcement and advocacy activities relevant to health care.

Per a memorandum sent March 20, 2026, this “Health Care Task Force” will recruit its members from several FTC departments, including the Bureaus of Competition, Consumer Protection, and Economics, as well as the Offices of Policy Planning and Technology. In his memo, Ferguson describes the necessity of improving the American health care system as a “no brainer” and further casts the Task Force’s creation as an intuitive expansion of the FTC’s core directive to “protect the American people from unfair or deceptive practices and unfair methods of competition.” To support this overarching mission, he defines several core responsibilities for the Task Force. These include:

• • Facilitating more effective knowledge-sharing by consolidating currently disparate information sources (e.g., bureau-specific knowledge, case leads, market knowledge, third-party sources, interagency relationships and contacts).
  • Ideating and spearheading “targeted enforcement and advocacy initiatives" to advance health care priorities identified to be of interest by the FTC chairman and bureau front offices.
  • Leading — and charting strategy for — new and/or emerging investigations.
  • Proactively seeking opportunities to file amicus briefs and statements of interest relevant to and supportive of the FTC’s health care priorities.
  • Identifying emerging consumer protection concerns and potential new areas for enforcement and advocacy.

Regulatory Implications for Health Care Organizations

While the memo does not explicitly define specific, immediate advocacy or enforcement priorities for the new Task Force, it does provide a few thematic hints. For example, Ferguson’s decision to open with a quote from Executive Order 14211 may telegraph his agency’s intent to align with the Trump Administration’s stated second-term priorities of increasing transparency into health care pricing for policy premiums and service rates, lowering consumer costs, and driving corporate accountability. (These goals were reiterated in the Trump Administration’s “Great Healthcare Plan,” which was published in January 2026 and shared the White House’s high-level health care priorities in an informal and nonenforceable manner.)

The memo does not suggest that the FTC plans to recommend or support further regulation; on the contrary, Ferguson asserts that “anticompetitive regulations further undermine incentives to lower costs and improve the quality of care.” Enforcement appears to be of more interest; the memo recaps several recent investigations and corrective actions taken against health care organizations alleged to have engaged in anticompetitive, deceptive, or unfair practices. Moreover, while each enforcement action is distinct, the list as a whole implies a few preferred areas of investigation.

• • The FTC has shown interest in demanding greater transparency and accountability from pharmacy benefit managers. Regulators have challenged business practices that allegedly obscure price transparency, inflate consumer costs, and undermine the financial viability of independent pharmacies.
  • The FTC may view blocking mergers and challenging improper patent listings as levers for preserving pharmaceutical and medical device competition. Regulators have moved aggressively to prevent consolidation among leading players where mergers would eliminate price competition and stifle innovation. Challenges to improperly filed patents have also been deployed to remove barriers that delay generic drug entry and suppress price competition.
  • The FTC is taking significant enforcement action against allegedly deceptive health care marketing strategies. Misleading advertising — spanning health insurance plans, weight-loss programs, and products marketed with unsubstantiated health claims — has prompted significant enforcement actions. Regulators have shown particular focus on tactics targeting vulnerable populations, including those seeking treatment for serious or chronic conditions.

Health care organizations should be aware that regulatory oversight will likely intensify, not plateau, once the Task Force forms. Ferguson makes a point to state that the Task Force should eventually seek to partner with non-FTC stakeholders such as the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Both agencies have similarly stepped up their efforts to police the health care sector during President Trump’s second term. In January 2026, the DOJ reported that of a total $6.8 billion recovered in False Claims Act (FCA) settlements and judgments during the previous fiscal year, $5.7 billion related to matters involving the health care industry, with managed care, prescription drugs, and medically unnecessary care emerging as particular areas of focus.

If anything has been made clear in 2026, it is that regulators — whether associated with the FTC, DOJ, or HHS — are not planning to pivot their focus away from the health care industry anytime soon. For further details or clarification on what this development could mean for your organization’s compliance and regulatory strategy, please contact any author of this alert or your preferred Crowell & Moring lawyer.