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HOSTILE takeovers are never polite. One fight in America, however, has become particularlyugly. In December a huge stockmarket-traded hospital company, Community Health Systems,announced that it wanted to buy another, Tenet Healthcare, for $3.3 billion. The bid soonbecame a brawl. In the sagas most recent chapter, Tenet filed a lawsuit accusing Communityof overbilling government and private health-insurance schemes. Community denies this and,as The Economist went to press, was due to present a more detailed rebuttal. 财大气粗的收购商的字典里没有客气二字。然而，美国的一次收购事件却成为了一则丑闻战。大型上市公司社区保健医院在十二月宣布，它想再收购一家公司以22亿美元收购泰尼特保健。此次收购出价迅速演变成一场争夺战。战斗打了好几个回合，最近一次，泰尼特提起了诉讼，控告社区保健医院过分干预政府和个人的医疗保险计划。为了给出更有利的回击，本刊刊登时，社区保健医院对上述指控矢口否认。 Although this bid battle has become unusually rancorous, it is in line with a broader trend ofconsolidation in the huge but fragmented business of providing hospital care. In 2009Americas hospitals soaked up one-third of all national health-care spending, or $759 billion,roughly equal to the entire GDP of the Netherlands. In the long term an ageing population willproduce more invalids and thus more business. In 2014 the Obamacare health reforms willbring 32m newly insured patients. The less good news is that the health reforms also bringnew regulations and intense pressure to contain costs. This is strengthening the argumentfor consolidation among hospital operators. | 
