Happy Labor Day! Congress will resume its session next week following the August recess and the political conventions.

The FEHBlog nearly levitated out of his chair yesterday when he read this Steve Pearlstein column in the Washington Post yesterday assaulting Coventry Healthcare, Aetna, and the entire health insurance industry. (The FEHBlog knows that these companies don’t merit such abuse.)  Mr. Pearlstein places his hopes on provider controlled accountable care organizations replacing heath insurers and beseeching federal regulators to launch anti-trust challenges against Wellpoint’s recent acquisition of Amerigroup and Aetna’s acquisition of Coventry. However, the government did not question Cigna’s similar acquisition of Healthspring last year.  Moreover, as the FEHBlog has pointed out, the Affordable Care Act is feeding this health plan consolidation trend which according to Businessweek may be nearing an end. And without health insurance, the bottom would drop out for the health care industry.

In other anti-trust news, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette reports that last week a federal judge in that fair city dismissed a big chunk of the pharmacy chain’s anti-trust challenge to the Express Scripts’ acquisition of Medco last Spring. The court allowed a specialty pharmacy related issue to proceed and also allow the plaintiffs an opportunity to revise their complaint.

The AMA News gleefully reports that health insurer earnings have been dropping because patient utilization and doctors earnings are up this year. The AMA News further cautions that overwork is wearing down the profession. It’s quite a conundrum, as Newman would say.