It would appear that we were lied to on the financials of ObamaCare. It turns out he legislation will do nothing to control rising costs, and in fact will actually worsen the situation. In short, exactly what conservative opponents of government-run health care said would happen.

The projected reductions in budget deficits and in the federal budgetary commitment to health care during the decade beyond the 10-year budget window are steps in the direction of sustainable fiscal policy. However, they are small steps relative to the length of the journey that will be needed to achieve sustainability. If the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 are extended, the alternative minimum tax is indexed for inflation, and no other changes are made to current laws regarding taxes and spending, the budget deficit in 2020 would be about 6 percent of GDP and rising. Because federal health care programs make up a large share of the federal budget, putting that budget on a sustainable path would almost certainly require a significant reduction in the growth of federal spending on health care relative to the amounts projected under current law (including this year’s health legislation).

In considering the opportunities for achieving that reduction in spending growth, there are grounds for both optimism and pessimism. On the upside, there is considerable agreement that a substantial share of current spending on health care contributes little if anything to people’s health, and providers and health analysts are making significant efforts to make the health system more efficient. On the downside, it is not clear what specific policies the federal government can adopt to generate fundamental changes in the health system; that is, it is not clear what specific policies would translate the potential for significant cost savings into reality. Moreover, efforts to reduce costs substantially would increase the risk that people would not get some health care they need or would like to receive.

Read that last sentence again. “(P)eople would not get some health care they need or would like to receive.” That’s a long-winded way of saying there will need to be rationing of health care in order to lower costs. Which, again, is exactly what conservatives were blasted for projecting prior to the legislation’s passage.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration has declared a war on doctors, accusing them of “price fixing” for not simply accepting whatever amount the government wants to pay for procedures. Seriously.

As I’ve long suspected, “health care reform” has emboldened the Justice Department to take a more active role in enforcing government price controls against physicians. Today the Antitrust Division, joined by Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, forced a a group of Boise orthopedists to accept price controls for worker’s compensation and HMO contracts as part of a settlement accusing the doctors of “price fixing” …

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.”

Doctors now have two choices: Accept whatever price the government gives them or face criminal charges of “price fixing”. The federal government can now criminally charge doctors for not getting paid whatever the federal government wants them to get paid. Thanks, ObamaCare.