WASHINGTON BUREAU — Lawmakers plan to introduce a bill Friday that would repeal the protection that the McCarran-Ferguson Act now gives health insurers and medical malpractice insurers against federal antitrust laws.
The bill would leave out any provisions giving the Federal Trade Commission enforcement authority over "unfair methods of competition" in the insurance market, according to several insurance industry officials and lawyers.
The House health bill — H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act – includes a section that combines an FTC authority provision with an antitrust repeal provision.
Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va. and Rep. Betsy Markey, D-Colo., are introducing the new, narrow antitrust bill.
Supporters hope to bring the bill up for a vote on the House floor next week.
"It's time for Washington to decide whether we stand with patients or profiteering, whether we believe in market competition or collusion between politicians and insurance monopolies," Perriello and Markey say in a statement.
In the past 14 years, "there have been 400 mergers among health care insurers so that 95% of health insurance markets are 'highly concentrated,' which means consumers have little or no choice between insurers," Perriello and Markey say.
But America's Health Insurance Plans, Washington, has argued that the bill would have little practical effect on its members, because state and federal laws, regulations and court decisions already subject health insurance industry mergers, acquisitions and pricing decisions to antitrust scrutiny, and similar types of scrutiny.
In recent years, for example, federal or state regulators have required several large health insurers to give up some health plan operations before completing major acquisitions.
The property-casualty insurance industry has campaigned more vigorously against antitrust repeal measures, because of the fear that repeal could cut small medical malpractice insurers off from the multi-carrier experience studies that the small carriers need to set rates.
The National Association of Professional Insurance Agents, Alexandria, Va., has asked members to call members of Congress to oppose the bill.
It is unclear whether the Perriello-Markey bill will have the votes to pass, "even if it comes up in the House floor," the PIA says in a message to members. "Some industry lobbyists think that a vote may not be taken if there aren't sufficient votes to pass [the bill]."
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