Skip Oliva Reports From The Front In The ObamaCare War On Life Expectancy

Last year, EPJ's Robert Wenzel explained why life expectancy will decline under ObamaCare. Today, Skip Oliva gives us a look at some of Wenzel's principles in practice in a blog post at the Mises Institute website wherein he announces that the DOJ declares war on doctors:

This case is a watershed for two reasons: First, until now the Federal Trade Commission, not the Justice Department, has taken the lead in prosecuting physicians. Since 2000, the FTC has brought about three dozen cases against physicians (all but one of which settled without any trial). But the FTC only has civil and administrative jurisdiction; the Antitrust Division has civil and criminal jurisdiction. The Sherman Act makes no distinction between civil and criminal “price fixing,” so in a case like this, it’s entirely a matter of prosecutorial discretion whether to charge the doctors with a civil or criminal offense. Based on the descriptions in the Antitrust Division’s press release, there’s certainly no reason they couldn’t have prosecuted the doctors criminally and insisted upon prison sentences — and there’s little doubt such threats were made or implied to obtain the physicians’ agreement to the proposed “settlement.”

The second reason this is a landmark case is that the Justice Department has unambiguously stated that refusal to accept government price controls is a form of illegal “price fixing.” The FTC has hinted at this when it’s said physicians must accept Medicare-based reimbursement schedules from insurance companies. But the DOJ has gone the final step and said, “Government prices are market prices,” in the form of the Idaho Industrial Commission’s fee schedule. The IIC administers the state’s worker compensation system and is composed of three commissioners appointed by the governor. This isn’t a quasi-private or semi-private entity. It’s a purely government operation.

What’s more, the Antitrust Division has linked a refusal to accept government price controls with a refusal to accept a “private” insurance company’s contract offer. This lives [sic] little doubt that antitrust regulators consider insurance party contracts the equivalent of government price controls — and physicians and patients have no choice but to accept them.

It's worth reading Skip's entire post because it includes specific details of the "price-fixing" allegations leveled at these doctors. His conclusion-in-the-form-of-a-prophecy is as tragic as it is chilling:

this policy will quickly degenerate into political demagoguery. It’s just too easy to label physicians “price fixers” and scapegoat them for the failure of government planning of the healthcare industry.

Skip is the man to follow on the FTC, DOJ and other government "antitrust" (aka competition-bullying) measures.