Health care monopoly?

Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons sent a letter Friday to the U.S. Department of Justice and the consumer-protection unit of the Federal Trade Commission, asking both agencies to carefully review the proposed $2.6 billion acquisition of Las Vegas-based Sierra Health Services by Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group.

The governor also asked state Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto to "continue with a vigorous investigation" of the proposed deal. The governor is "deeply concerned about the potential monopoly the merger could create," particularly for Medicare dependents, he said.

Insurance commissioners in Nevada, California and Arizona have already approved the deal -- the OK of Nevada Commissioner Alice Molasky-Arman coming with a provision that the companies may not pass along buyout costs to consumers in the form of higher premiums or slashed benefits.

If this were any other industry, such scrutiny of a voluntary transaction that would result in one firm controlling a mere 28 percent of Nevada's commercial market would be excessive, to say the least.

The difference here is not economic, but political. It's a common -- albeit absurd -- political utterance these days to declare that there is a "right" to health care, a right that must be enforced by government agents with guns.

Why? Because medicine is a "matter of life and death."

So is food. Yet no one is demanding that the government step in and force everyone to buy tax-subsidized "steak dinner insurance" -- at least not yet.

True "rights" are restrictions on government interference with our liberties -- to write, to talk, to worship, to go about our business in peace.

A pretended "right" to someone else's services is quite a different thing. It's more akin to slave owners saying they had a "right" to the fruit of their chattels' labors. In this case, the chattels are merely those who were foolish enough to enter the medical professions.

No one in need of emergency care in this country goes without. Hospitals and doctors have always offered charity care. The difference today is that no one thanks them, because no one wants to admit it's a voluntary gift.

Gov. Gibbons, seeking political cover in a politically heated environment, has every right to ask regulators to perform their due diligence. That's fine.

Of course, if those who oppose this buyout were truly concerned that it may reduce the level of competition in the local health insurance market, they would be urging an end to the ban on Nevadans buying health insurance across state lines, as well as an end to any anti-competitive measures that discourage private hospitals and practitioners from announcing, "We're tired of all the extra overhead caused by Medicare, Medicaid and the private insurers. As of next week we're dropping our prices by two-thirds, posting big price lists on the wall like McDonald's and practicing medicine for immediate payment only -- cash and major credit cards. Whether someone reimburses the patient later is no concern of ours."

Funny they haven't done that.