COMPETITION "IMPEDED" BECAUSE OF THE GOVERNMENT?

The White House issued a statement Thursday as a response to the House's passing of a bill to require Medicare to negotiate for lower prices with pharamceutical companies:

"Government interference impedes competition, limits access to lifesaving drugs, reduces convenience for beneficiaries and ultimately increases costs to taxpayers, beneficiaries and all American citizens alike."

What kind of morons must the White House think we are? That's their argument--that government harms competition? Do they think we don't know about antitrust legislation? Do they think we don't know that in general, the idea is for government to force competition to be allowed, so that a monopoly does not exist to the detriment of the consumer?

I mean, I'm no economist or anything, but the statement that "government interference impedes competition" just seems ludicrous to me. I tend to think that "government mandates competition (with a few exceptions)."

Or am I just totatlly wrong about that?