Top Officials Call for More Health-Care Antitrust Cases (2)

The US hasn’t enforced its antitrust laws enough in the health care industry, top Justice Department officials said, voicing particular concern about consolidation among groups of doctors and nurses.

“We are becoming more lucid to under-enforcement in healthcare,” Doha Mekki, the No. 2 official in the Justice Department’s antitrust division, said during a Bloomberg roundtable on Wednesday. The US has roughly 2,000 fewer hospitals today than existed in 1998, she said.

Mekki didn’t name specific companies. But antitrust enforcers have been scrutinizing UnitedHealth Group Inc., the largest US health insurer, and its move to buy up doctor groups ...