Kamala Harris and the Push to Cut Hosptal Bills in California

As a former state attorney general, Senator Kamala D. Harris, the Democratic nominee for vice president, has received significant scrutiny of her record on law enforcement, facing questions and criticism about uneven prosecutions of killings by police officers.

But she is less known for another role she took on, opposing the consolidation of institutions in the health care industry, which has become a major force driving the cost of medical care higher for consumers. She challenged proposed mergers between industry behemoths and anti-competitive behavior by powerful hospital systems and drug makers.

She oversaw multimillion-dollar settlements with major health care corporations like Quest Diagnostics and McKesson, which were the subjects of whistle-blower lawsuits accusing them of fraud against the state Medicaid program.

And she took the lead among state attorneys general in opposing an anti-competitive merger between a big hospital group and a large physician practice. She joined the Justice Department lawsuit that stopped two of the nation’s largest health insurers, Anthem and Cigna, from joining together.