delivered the opinion of the Court.

The antitrust complaint at issue in this case alleges that a group health plan’s practice of refusing to reimburse subscribers for psychotherapy performed by psychologists, while providing reimbursement for comparable treatment by psychiatrists, was in furtherance of an unlawful conspiracy to restrain competition in the psychotherapy market. The question presented is whether a subscriber who employed the services of a psychologist has standing to maintain an action under § 4 of the Clayton Act based upon the plan’s failure to provide reimbursement for the costs of that treatment.

HH

From September 1975 until January 1978, respondent Carol MeCready was an employee of Prince William County, *468Va. As part of her compensation, the county provided her with coverage under a prepaid group health plan purchased from petitioner Blue Shield of Virginia (Blue Shield).1 The plan specifically provided reimbursement for a portion of the cost incurred by subscribers with respect to outpatient treatment for mental and nervous disorders, including psychotherapy. Pursuant to this provision, Blue Shield reimbursed subscribers for psychotherapy provided by psychiatrists. But Blue Shield did not provide reimbursement for the services of psychologists unless the treatment was supervised by and billed through a physician.2 While a subscriber to the plan, McCready was treated by a clinical psychologist. She submitted claims to Blue Shield for the costs of that treatment, but those claims were routinely denied because they had not been billed through a physician.3

In 1978, McCready brought this class action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, on behalf of all Blue Shield subscribers who had incurred costs *469for psychological services since 1973 but who had not been reimbursed.4 The complaint alleged that Blue Shield and petitioner Neuropsychiatric Society of Virginia, Inc., had engaged in an unlawful conspiracy in violation of § 1 of the *470Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § l,5 “to exclude and boycott clinical psychologists from receiving compensation under” the Blue Shield plans. App. 55. McCready further alleged that Blue Shield’s failure to reimburse had been in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy, and had caused injury to her business or property for which she was entitled to treble damages and attorney’s fees under § 4 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, 15 U. S. C. §15.6

The District Court granted petitioners’ motion to dismiss, holding that McCready had no standing under § 4 to maintain her suit.7 In the District Court’s view, McCready’s standing to maintain a § 4 action turned on whether she had suffered injury “within the sector of the economy competitively endangered by the defendants’ alleged violations of the antitrust laws.” App. 17. Noting that the goal of the alleged boycott was to exclude clinical psychologists from a segment of the psychotherapy market, the court concluded that the “sector of the economy competitively endangered” by the charged violation extended “no further than that area occupied by the psychologists.” Id., at 18 (emphasis in original). Thus, while McCready clearly had suffered an injury by *471being denied reimbursement, this injury was “too indirect and remote to be considered ‘antitrust injury.’” Ibid.

A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed, holding that McCready had alleged an injury within the meaning of § 4 of the Clayton Act and had standing to maintain the suit. 649 F. 2d 228 (1981). The court recognized that the goal of the alleged conspiracy was the exclusion of clinical psychologists from some segment of the psychotherapy market. But it held that the § 4 remedy was available to any person “whose property loss is directly or proximately caused by” a violation of the antitrust laws, and that McCready’s loss was not “too remote or indirect to be covered by the Act.” Id., at 231.8 The court thus *472remanded the case to the District Court for further proceedings. We granted certiorari. 454 U. S. 962 (1981).

W I — t

Section 4 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, provides a treble-damages remedy to “[ajny person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws,” 15 U. S. C. §15 (emphasis added). As we noted in Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 337 (1979), “[o]n its face, § 4 contains little in the way of restrictive language.” And the lack of restrictive language reflects Congress’ “expansive remedial purpose” in enacting § 4: Congress sought to create a private enforcement mechanism that would deter violators and deprive them of the fruits of their illegal actions, and would provide ample compensation to the victims of antitrust violations. Pfizer Inc. v. India, 434 U. S. 308, 313-314 (1978). See Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U. S. 477, 485-486, and n. 10, (1977); Perma Mufflers, Inc. v. International Parts Corp., 392 U. S. 134, 139 (1968); American Society of Mechanical Engineers v. Hydrolevel Corp., 456 U. S. 556, 572-573, and n. 10 (1982). As we have recognized, “[t]he statute does not confine its protection to consumers, or to purchasers, or to competitors, or to sellers. . . . The Act is comprehensive in its terms and coverage, protecting all who are made victims of the forbidden practices by whomever they may be perpetrated.” Mandeville Island Farms, Inc. v. American Crystal Sugar Co., 334 U. S. 219, 236 (1948).

Consistent with the congressional purpose, we have refused to engraft artificial limitations on the §4 remedy.9 *473Two recent cases illustrate the point. Pfizer Inc. v. India, supra, afforded the statutory phrase “any person” its “naturally broad and inclusive meaning,” id., at 312, and held that it extends even to an action brought by a foreign sovereign. Similarly, Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., supra, rejected the argument that the § 4 remedy is available only to redress injury to commercial interests. In that case we afforded the statutory term “property” its “naturally broad and inclusive meaning,” and held that a consumer has standing to seek a § 4 remedy reflecting the increase in the purchase price of goods that was attributable to a price-fixing conspiracy. 442 U. S., at 338. In sum, in the absence of some articulable consideration of statutory policy suggesting a contrary conclusion in a particular factual setting, we have applied § 4 in accordance with its plain language and its broad remedial and deterrent objectives. But drawing on statutory policy, our cases have acknowledged two types of limitation on the availability of the § 4 remedy to particular classes of persons and for redress of particular forms of injury. We treat these limitations in turn.10

A

In Hawaii v. Standard Oil Co., 405 U. S. 251 (1972), we held that § 4 did not authorize a State to sue in its parens pa-triae capacity for damages to its “general economy.” Noting *474that a “large and ultimately indeterminable part of the injury to the.‘general economy’ ... is no more than a reflection of injuries to the ‘business or property’ of consumers, for which they may recover themselves under §4,” we concluded that “[e]ven the most lengthy and expensive trial could not . . . cope with the problems of double recovery inherent in allowing damages” for injury to the State’s quasi-sovereign interests. Id., at 264. See Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., supra, at 342.

In Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431 U. S. 720 (1977), similar concerns prevailed. Hanover Shoe, Inc. v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 392 U. S. 481 (1968), had held that an antitrust defendant could not relieve itself of its obligation to pay damages resulting from overcharges to a direct-purchaser plaintiff by showing that the plaintiff had passed the amount of the overcharge on to its own customers. Illinois Brick was an action by an indirect purchaser claiming damages from the antitrust violator measured by the amount that had been passed on to it. Relying in part on Hawaii v. Standard Oil Co., supra, the Court found unacceptable the risk of du-plicative recovery engendered by allowing both direct and indirect purchasers to claim damages resulting from a single overcharge by the antitrust defendant. Illinois Brick, supra, at 730-731. The Court found that the splintered recoveries and litigative burdens that would result from a rule requiring that the impact of an overcharge be apportioned between direct and indirect purchasers could undermine the active enforcement of the antitrust laws by private actions. 431 U. S., 745-747. The Court concluded that direct purchasers rather than indirect purchasers were the injured parties who as a group were most likely to press their claims with the vigor that the §4 treble-damages remedy was intended to promote. Id., at 735.

The policies identified in Hawaii and Illinois Brick plainly offer no support for petitioners here. Both cases focused on the risk of duplicative recovery engendered by allowing *475every person along a chain of distribution to claim damages arising from a single transaction that violated the antitrust laws. But permitting respondent to proceed in the circumstances of this case offers not the slightest possibility of a du-plicative exaction from petitioners. McCready has paid her psychologist’s bills; her injury consists of Blue Shield’s failure to pay her. Her psychologist can link no claim of injury to himself arising from his treatment of McCready; he has been fully paid for his service and has not been injured by Blue Shield’s refusal to reimburse her for the cost of his services. And whatever the adverse effect of Blue Shield’s actions on McCready’s employer, who purchased the plan, it is not the employer as purchaser, but its employees as subscribers, who are out of pocket as a consequence of the plan’s failure to pay benefits.11

*476B

Analytically distinct from the restrictions on the § 4 remedy recognized in Hawaii and Illinois Brick, there is the conceptually more difficult question “of which persons have sustained injuries too remote [from an antitrust violation] to give them standing to sue for damages under § 4.” Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431 U. S., at 728, n. 7 (emphasis added).12 An antitrust violation may be expected to cause ripples of *477harm to flow through the Nation’s economy; but “despite the broad wording of § 4 there is a point beyond which the wrongdoer should not be held liable.” Id., at 760 (Brennan, J., dissenting). It is reasonable to assume that Congress did not intend to allow every person tangentially affected by an antitrust violation to maintain an action to recover threefold damages for the injury to his business or property. Of course, neither the statutory language nor the legislative history of §4 offers any focused guidance on the question of which injuries are too remote from the violation and the purposes of the antitrust laws to form the predicate for a suit under §4; indeed, the unrestrictive language of the section, and the avowed breadth of the congressional purpose, cautions us not to cabin § 4 in ways that will defeat its broad remedial objective. But the potency of the remedy implies the need for some care in its application. In the absence of direct guidance from Congress, and faced with the claim that a particular injury is too remote from the alleged violation to warrant § 4 standing, the courts are thus forced to resort to an analysis no less elusive than that employed traditionally by courts at common law with respect to the matter of “proximate cause.”13 See Perkins v. Standard Oil Co., 395 U. S. 642, 649 (1969); Karseal Corp. v. Richfield Oil Corp., 221 *478F. 2d 358, 363 (CA9 1955). In applying that elusive concept to this statutory action, we look (1) to the physical and economic nexus between the alleged violation and the harm to the plaintiff, and (2), more particularly, to the relationship of the injury alleged with those forms of injury about which Congress was likely to have been concerned in making defendant’s conduct unlawful and in providing a private remedy under §4.

(1)

It is petitioners’ position that McCready’s injury is too “fortuitous” and too “incidental” to and “remote” from the alleged violation to provide the basis for a §4 action.14 At the outset, petitioners argue that because the alleged conspiracy was directed by its protagonists at psychologists, and not at subscribers to group health plans, only psychologists might maintain suit. This argument may be quickly disposed of.

We do not think that because the goal of the conspirators was to halt encroachment by psychologists into a market that *479physicians and psychiatrists sought to preserve for themselves, McCready’s injury is rendered “remote.” The availability of the § 4 remedy to some person who claims its benefit is not a question of the specific intent of the conspirators. Here the remedy cannot reasonably be restricted to those competitors whom the conspirators hoped to eliminate from the market.15 McCready claims that she has been the victim of a concerted refusal to pay on the part of Blue Shield, motivated by a desire to deprive psychologists of the patronage of Blue Shield subscribers. Denying reimbursement to subscribers for the cost of treatment was the very means by which it is alleged that Blue Shield sought to achieve its illegal ends. The harm to McCready and her class was clearly foreseeable; indeed, it was a necessary step in effecting the ends of the alleged illegal conspiracy. Where the injury alleged is so integral an aspect of the conspiracy alleged, there can be no question but that the loss was precisely “ ‘the type of loss that the claimed violations . . . would be likely to cause.’” Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U. S., at 489, quoting Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 395 U. S. 100, 125 (1969).

Petitioners next argue that even if the § 4 remedy might be available to persons other than the competitors of the conspirators, it is not available to McCready because she was not an economic actor in the market that had been restrained. In petitioners’ view, the proximate range of the violation is limited to the sector of the economy in which a violation of the type alleged would have its most direct anticompetitive effects. Here, petitioners contend that that market, for purposes of the alleged conspiracy, is the market in group health care plans. Thus, in petitioners’ view, standing to redress *480the violation alleged in this case is limited to participants in that market — that is, to entities, such as McCready’s employer, who were purchasers of group health plans, but not to McCready as a beneficiary of the Blue Shield plan.16

Petitioners misconstrue McCready’s complaint. Mc-Cready does not allege a restraint in the market for group health plans. Her claim of injury is premised on a concerted refusal to reimburse under a plan that was, in fact, purchased and retained by her employer for her benefit, and- that as a matter of contract construction and state law permitted reimbursement for the services of psychologists without any significant variation in the structure of the contractual relationship between her employer and Blue Shield.17 See n. 2, supra. As a consumer of psychotherapy services entitled to financial benefits under the Blue Shield plan, we think it clear that McCready was “within that area of the economy . . . endangered by [that] breakdown of competitive conditions” *481resulting from Blue Shield’s selective refusal to reimburse. In re Multidistrict Vehicle Air Pollution M.D.L. No. 31, 481 F. 2d 122, 129 (CA9 1973).

(2)

We turn finally to the manner in which the injury alleged reflects Congress’ core concerns in prohibiting the antitrust defendants’ course of conduct. Petitioners phrase their argument on this point in a manner that concedes McCready’s participation in the market for psychotherapy services and rests instead on the notion that McCready’s injury does not reflect the “anticompetitive” effect of the.alleged boycott. They stress that McCready did not visit a psychiatrist whose fees were artificially inflated as a result of the competitive advantage he gained by Blue Shield’s refusal to reimburse for the services of psychologists; she did not pay additional sums for the services of a physician to supervise and bill for the psychotherapy provided by her psychologist; and that there is no “claim that her psychologists’ bills are higher than they would have been had the conspiracy not existed.”18 In promoting this argument, petitioners rely heavily on language in Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., supra.

In Brunswick, respondents were three bowling centers who complained that petitioner’s acquisition of several financially troubled bowling centers violated § 7 of the Clayton Act by lessening competition or tending to create a monopoly. In seeking damages, “respondents attempted to show that had petitioner allowed the [acquired] centers to close, respondents’profits would have increased.” Id., at 481. The Court of Appeals endorsed the legal theory upon which respondents’ claim was based, id., at 483, holding that “any loss ‘causally linked’ to ‘the mere presence of the violator in the market’” was compensable under §4, id., at 487. We reversed, holding that the injury alleged by respondents was not of “‘the type that the statute was intended to forestall.’” *482Id., at 487-488, quoting Wyandotte Transportation Co. v. United States, 389 U. S. 191, 202 (1967). Indeed, the Court noted that respondents sought in damages “the profits they would have realized had competition been reduced .” 429 U. S., at 488 (emphasis added).

We can agree with petitioners’ view of Brunswick as embracing the general principle that treble-damages recoveries should be linked to the procompetition policy of the antitrust laws. But petitioners seek to take Brunswick one significant step farther. In a passage upon which petitioners place much reliance, we stated:

“[Fjor plaintiffs to recover treble damages on account of § 7 violations, they must prove more than injury causally linked to an illegal presence in the market. Plaintiffs must prove antitrust injury, which is to say injury of the type, the antitrust laws were intended to prevent , and that flows from that which makes defendants’ acts unlawful. The injury should reflect the anticompetitive effect either of the violation or of anticompetitive acts made possible by the violation. It should, in short, be ‘the type of loss that the claimed violations .. . would be likely to cause.’ Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeliine Research, 395 U. S., at 125.” Id., at 489 (emphasis in original; footnote omitted).

Relying on this language, petitioners reason that McCready can maintain no action under § 4 because her injury “did not reflect the anticompetitive effect” of the alleged violation.

Brunswick is not so limiting. Indeed, as we made clear in a footnote to the relied-upon passage, a §4 plaintiff need not “prove an actual lessening of competition in order to recover. [Cjompetitors may be able to prove antitrust injury before they actually are driven from the market and competition is thereby lessened.” Id., at 489, n. 14. Thus while an increase in price resulting from a dampening of competitive market forces is assuredly one type of injury for which § 4 po*483tentially offers redress, see Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330 (1979), that is not the only form of injury remediable under § 4. We think it plain that McCready’s injury was of a type that Congress sought to redress in providing a private remedy for violations of the antitrust laws.

McCready charges Blue Shield with a purposefully anti-competitive scheme. She seeks to recover as damages the sums lost to her as the consequence of Blue Shield’s attempt to pursue that scheme.19 She alleges that Blue Shield sought to induce its subscribers into selecting psychiatrists over psychologists for the psychotherapeutic services they required,20 and that the heart of its scheme was the offer of a Hobson’s choice to its subscribers. Those subscribers were compelled to choose between visiting a psychologist and forfeiting reimbursement, or receiving reimbursement by forgoing treatment by the practitioner of their choice. In the latter case, the antitrust injury would have been borne in the first instance by the competitors of the conspirators, and inevitably — though indirectly — by the customers of the competitors in the form of suppressed competition in the psychotherapy market; in the former case, as it happened, the injury was borne directly by the customers of the competitors. McCready did not yield to Blue Shield’s coercive pressure, and bore Blue Shield’s sanction in the form of an increase in the net cost of her psychologist’s services. Although *484McCready was not a competitor of the conspirators, the injury she suffered was inextricably intertwined with the injury the conspirators sought to inflict on psychologists and the psychotherapy market. In light of the conspiracy here alleged we think that McCready’s injury “flows from that which makes defendants’ acts unlawful” within the meaning of Brunswick, and falls squarely within the area of congressional concern.21

Ill

Section 4 of the Clayton Act provides a remedy to “[a]ny person” injured “by reason of” anything prohibited in the *485antitrust laws. We are asked in this case to infer a limitation on the rule of recovery suggested by the plain language of §4. But having reviewed our precedents and, more importantly, the policies of the antitrust laws, we are unable to identify any persuasive rationale upon which McCready might be denied redress under §4 for the injury she claims. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

with whom The Chief Justice and Justice O’Connor join, dissenting.

Respondent’s alleged “antitrust injury” in this case arises from a health insurance coverage dispute with her insurer, petitioner Blue Shield of Virginia. Respondent’s complaint is that Blue Shield reimburses its subscribers for treatment by psychiatrists, but not by psychologists unless their services are supervised and billed by treating physicians. Respondent was treated by a clinical psychologist, but when she submitted claims to Blue Shield, she was denied reimbursement.

Respondent alleged in her complaint that Blue Shield’s refusal to reimburse her for the costs she incurred in obtaining the services of a psychologist furthered a conspiracy by petitioners “to exclude and boycott clinical psychologists from receiving compensation under” Blue Shield’s plan.. App. 55. Blue Shield’s refusal-to-reimburse policy is alleged to constitute a form of economic pressure on McCready and other Blue Shield subscribers to obtain the services of psychiatrists rather than psychologists. By employing this economic pressure on Blue Shield subscribers, petitioners are alleged to have placed clinical psychologists at a competitive disadvantage with regard to psychiatrists in the market for insurance-reimbursed psychological services.

The Court concludes that McCready’s inability to obtain reimbursement for the psychological services she actually obtained permits her to maintain an action to enforce the anti*486trust laws pursuant to § 4 of the Clayton Act. According to the Court, one who suffers economic loss as a necessary step in effecting the end of a conspiracy has “standing” to sue pursuant to §4. Ante, at 479, 483-484. I disagree.

Section 4 of the Clayton Act authorizes suits for treble damages by “[a]ny person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws.” 15 U. S. C. § 15. It is not enough, however, for a plaintiff merely to allege that the defendant violated the antitrust laws and that he was injured. Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U. S. 477, 486-489 (1977). See Hawaii v. Standard Oil Co., 405 U. S. 251, 263, n. 14 (1972). The injury suffered by the plaintiff must be of the type the antitrust laws were intended to forestall. Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., supra, at 487-488.

“Plaintiffs must prove antitrust injury, which is to say injury of the type the antitrust laws were intended to prevent and that flows from that which makes defendants’ acts unlawful. The injury should reflect the anti-competitive effect either of the violation or of anti-competitive acts made possible by the violation. It should, in short, be ‘the type of loss that the claimed violations ... would be likely to cause.’” 429 U. S., at 489 (citation omitted).

Although McCready alleges that she would have been reimbursed had it not been for the conspiracy, I do not think that she has made a sufficient allegation of “antitrust injury” within the meaning of Brunswick.

Standing alone, a refusal by an insurer to reimburse its insured does not constitute a violation of the Sherman Act. At most, such an action on the part of an insurer may amount to a breach of a contract or a violation of relevant state law regulating the insurance industry.1 According to the Court, *487however, what distinguishes this case from the typical insurance coverage dispute is either the purpose behind or the effect of Blue Shield’s refusal to reimburse. If Blue Shield violated the antitrust laws by its nonreimbursement policy, it was only because that policy was used as a means of putting psychologists at a competitive disadvantage in relation to psychiatrists.

Two conceivable grounds therefore may be divined from the Court’s opinion to support its conclusion that McCready has suffered “antitrust injury” when Blue Shield refused to reimburse her costs in obtaining the services of a psychologist. The first theory is that McCready may recover simply because petitioners’ nonreimbursement policy was intended to put clinical psychologists at a competitive disadvantage. According to the Court, this must be so even if Blue Shield’s refusal to reimburse her would be entirely legal under the antitrust laws in the absence of such a purpose to competitively injure third parties. Blue Shield’s intent or purpose renders the discriminatory reimbursement policy illegal. Under this theory, it would seem to be irrelevant for the Court’s purposes whether McCready obtained the services of a psychologist or a psychiatrist so long as the illegal intent is present and she suffered economic loss as a result.2

The second conceivable rationale is a flat rule that recovery is permitted by those persons who suffer economic loss as a necessary step in effecting a conspiracy to place third par*488ties at a competitive disadvantage.3 Under this theory, McCready may recover merely by demonstrating that she was a “tool” of petitioners’ effort to disable psychologists from competing with psychiatrists in the market for insurance-reimbursed psychological services. She may recover because she did not yield to the economic pressure imposed on her.4 The theory is that McCready may recover because her loss is linked to petitioners’ efforts to enforce a “boycott” of third parties.

I believe that such reasoning is foreclosed by the Court’s decision in Brunswick. In order to recover, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the nature of the injury he suffered is of the type that makes the challenged practice illegal. In Brunswick, the merger may well have violated § 7 of the Clayton Act in the abstract or even as to competitors not before the Court. Yet, we held that the plaintiffs in Brunswick could not recover because they did not suffer from the anticompet-itive effects of the merger. We rejected the contention that it was sufficient to show merely that the defendant’s merger violated § 7 and that there existed a causal link between that merger and an economic loss. 429 U. S., at 486-489. In*489stead, the required showing is that the type of harm suffered by the plaintiff is that which makes the challenged practice illegal. Id., at 489.

Therefore, McCready may not recover merely by showing that she has suffered an economic loss resulting from a practice the legality of which depends upon its effect on a third party. McCready must show that the challenged practice is illegal with regard to its effect upon her. But petitioners’ policy is alleged to be illegal not by virtue of its effect upon Blue Shield’s subscribers but because of its effect upon psychologists. McCready alleges no anticompetitive effect upon herself. She does not allege that the conspiracy has affected the availability of the psychological services she sought and actually obtained. Nor does she allege that the conspiracy affected the price of the treatment she received.5 She does not allege that her injury was caused by any reduction in competition between psychologists and psychiatrists, nor that it was the result of any success6 Blue Shield achieved in its “boycott” of psychologists. She seeks recovery solely on the basis that Blue Shield’s reimbursement policy failed to alter her conduct in a fashion necessary to foreclose psychologists from obtaining the patronage of Blue Shield’s subscribers.

If the important consideration is whether the challenged practice is illegal with regard to its effect on the plaintiff, then it would be irrelevant for the plaintiff’s purposes that the conspiracy might also adversely affect competition on another level of the market. For example, a group of retailers *490may threaten to refuse to do business with those distributors that continue to do business with a disfavored retailer. If the distributors agreed to cooperate with the conspiring retailers, then the disfavored retailer would have an action against the agreeing distributors and the conspiring retailers. See, e. g., United States v. General Motors Corp., 384 U. S. 127 (1966); Klor’s, Inc. v. Broadway-Hale Stores, Inc., 359 U. S. 207 (1959). I would think that a distributor who refused to go along with the retailers’ conspiracy and thereby lost the conspiring retailers’ business would also have an action against those retailers. Such an action would be based upon the conspirators’ concerted refusal to deal with the distributor which itself would be unlawful under the antitrust laws. Such an action, unlike the instant case, would not depend upon the anticompetitive effect of the challenged practice upon a third party. The distributor would have an action not on the ground that he was caught in the middle of an attempted boycott of participants on another level of the market, but because he was boycotted. The boycott of the distributor puts him at a competitive disadvantage to those distributors who are unaffected by the retailers’ conspiracy and to those distributors who agree to participate.7

McCready, however, does not allege that petitioners engaged in a concerted refusal to deal with her. As the Court is aware, ante, at 468-470, McCready has alleged that petitioners *491violated the antitrust laws by conspiring to exclude clinical psychologists from the coverage of Blue Shield plans, and that this conspiracy foreseeably injured her. The Court apparently concludes, however, that McCready has also sufficiently alleged that petitioners have engaged in a concerted refusal to deal with her, and that this is the gravamen of her antitrust complaint: “McCready alleges that she has been the victim of a concerted refusal by psychiatrists to reimburse through the Blue Shield plan.” Ante, at 484, n. 21. It may be that the Court today is merely holding that a boycottee has “standing” to sue under §4. Were this the issue presented by this case, I have little doubt that the Court merely would have denied certiorari.

But McCready simply does not, and could not, claim standing as the target of a concerted refusal to deal. Neither Blue Shield nor the psychiatrists threatened to cease doing business with McCready if she obtained the services of a psychologist rather than a psychiatrist. McCready alleges only that under the Blue Shield policy she could not obtain reimbursement for services rendered by psychologists. If such a claim is sufficient to make out a concerted refusal to deal, then any consumer who could not obtain a product or service on the precise terms he desires could claim to be the victim of a “boycott.” Most importantly, McCready alleges that Blue Shield’s policy violates the antitrust laws only by virtue of its anticompetitive effect on psychologists. She does not allege that Blue Shield’s policy is illegal in any way because of its effect on subscribers.

The Court, however, dismisses such concerns by stating in conclusory terms that “the injury [McCready] suffered was inextricably intertwined with the injury the conspirators sought to inflict on psychologists and the psychotherapy market.” Ante, at 484. I trust that the Court is not holding that a plaintiff may escape dismissal of the complaint merely by alleging that he suffered an economic loss “inextricably *492intertwined” with an injury the defendants intended, but failed, to inflict upon a third party.8 Although the Court may view itself as successfully deciding this case on its peculiar facts, it has wholly failed to provide any sort of reasoned basis for its decision. Especially in the area of antitrust law, labels do not suffice when analysis is necessary.

I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals because McCready has not alleged that she has suffered antitrust injury, but at best injury attributable to a breach of contract on the part of Blue Shield.

dissenting.

Respondent is a consumer of psychotherapeutic services. The question is whether she has been injured in her “business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws.”1 The alleged antitrust violation is an agreement between petitioners Neuropsychiatric Society of Virginia and Blue Shield that Blue Shield would refuse to reimburse subscribers for payments made to clinical psychologists for charges that were not billed through a physician. The objective of the alleged conspiracy was to induce subscribers to patronize psychiatrists instead of psychologists.

For purposes of decision, I assume that the alleged agreement is unlawful. In analyzing the sufficiency of respondent’s damage claim, it is helpful first to consider the situation *493in which the conspiracy would have its maximum impact on the relevant market. Given their objective, petitioners’ conspiracy would be most effective if they made it perfectly clear to subscribers that they would not be reimbursed if they consulted psychologists instead of psychiatrists. For without this information, a subscriber’s choice between a psychologist and a psychiatrist would not be affected by the conspiracy. Thus, I first assume that the Blue Shield insurance policy did not cover services performed by psychologists and that subscribers as a class were fully aware of this exclusion.

On this assumption, a Blue Shield subscriber who is a potential consumer in the relevant market has at least three options. He may: (1) forgo treatment entirely; (2) go to a psychiatrist; or (3) go to a psychologist.2 If he exercises his first option, his illness may worsen but he will not have suffered any economic injury cognizable under the antitrust laws.3 If he exercises his second option, his property will not be diminished because Blue Shield will reimburse him for his payment to the psychiatrist. If he exercises his third option, his property will be diminished to the extent of his unreimbursed payment to the psychologist, but he will have received in exchange psychotherapeutic services that pre*494sumably were worth the payment.4 The fact that he voluntarily elected to spend money for services not covered by his insurance policy would have no greater legal significance than a similar voluntary decision by a person who was not a Blue Shield subscriber.5 It thus seems clear to me that whatever option the fully informed subscriber exercises, he would suffer no injury to his property by reason of the restriction of insurance coverage to psychotherapeutic services performed by psychiatrists.

This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that Blue Shield subscribers have the additional option of going to a psychologist while retaining their rights to reimbursement under the policy. According to respondent’s complaint, Blue Shield did not refuse to reimburse all payments made by subscribers to psychologists, but only those payments not billed through a physician. Even if a fully informed subscriber’s preference for psychologists over psychiatrists were protected by the antitrust laws, that preference was not denied by the antitrust violation alleged in this case.6 The Hobson’s choice de*495scribed by the Court, ante, at 483, simply does not fit this case.

The availability of this fourth option would seem to indicate that respondent, in fact, was not fully aware of the scope of her policy’s coverage. If her lack of understanding was caused by fraud or deception, she should be able to recover in a common-law action. If the misunderstanding was her own fault, that circumstance should not provide a basis for an antitrust recovery that would not be available if she had been fully informed.

Nor is the deficiency in respondent’s complaint cured if the assumption about the insurance coverage is reversed. Although her antitrust claim would be more credible if Blue Shield excluded coverage of services performed by psychologists, respondent alleged in the second count of her complaint that the insurance policy, properly construed under applicable principles of Virginia law, provided coverage for services performed by psychologists, but that Blue Shield nevertheless refused to reimburse her for the payments she made to her psychologist. If a subscriber does not suffer antitrust injury when the insurance policy excludes coverage of services performed by psychologists, it would be anomalous to conclude that the availability of a breach-of-contract claim would in any way enhance his standing. The right to recover under the federal antitrust laws cannot be derived from a right to recover under state law.

Because respondent’s complaint discloses no basis for concluding that she has suffered an injury to her property by reason of the alleged antitrust violation, I respectfully dissent.