The Oregon Insurance Division has approved a merger between two of Portland’s major health care companies: Legacy Health and PacificSource.
The merger involves Legacy buying a 50 percent stake in PacificSource at a cost of more than $247 million.
Executives hope that by joining PacificSource’s insurance arm with Legacy’s five hospitals, the resulting company will be better positioned to compete against Portland’s two other integrated health systems, Kaiser Permanente and Providence Health.
A fourth integrated system is currently in the works between OHSU, Tuality Healthcare, Portland Adventist Medical Center and several rural hospitals.
In a report on the Legacy PacificSource merger, Oregon Insurance Division director Laura Cali found no evidence of decreased competition or prohibitive risk that would occur as a result of the merger.
Copyright 2016 Oregon Public Broadcasting
