Merger fever now appears to have spread to the health care field. Hospital Corp. of America, the nation's largest for-profit hospital company (1984 revenues: $4.1 billion), and American Hospital Supply, the No. 1 distributor of medical products (1984 sales: $3.5 billion), last week announced that they will pool their resources to become the largest corporate provider of health care services in the U.S. If shareholders of the two firms approve, the $6.6 billion deal will be the biggest merger outside the oil industry in American business history.
The companies plan to consolidate in order to hold down costs in the increasingly...