Conyers, Leahy Introduce Bill To End Health Insurers' Anti-Trust Exemption

[Are_grits_groceries]

John Conyers and some allies on the House Judiciary Committee have come up with a fabulous way to get the insurance industry in line - by threatening to remove their anti-trust exemption.

Many people don't know that the insurance industry, under the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945, has a broad anti-trust exemption that facilitates regional monopolies. The Act allows states to regulate the insurance business instead of the federal government, but also allows that, as long as the state regulates the industry, federal anti-trust laws would not apply.

As a result of this exemption, states have seen markets for health insurance where one or two companies predominate. In the state of Maine, Wellpoint controls 71% of the market. In North Dakota, Blue Cross controls 90%. Using the Herfindahl/Hirschman Index, a metric for market concentration, a 2007 study by the AMA found almost every health insurance market in the United States is highly concentrated.

http://crooksandliars.com/

This is the way to go after them!

[slipslidingaway]

1. knr nt

[drm604]

2. Absolutely.

This needs to happen.

[bananas]

3. direct link to article

http://crooksandliars.com/dday/conyers-leahy-introduce-bill-end-health-insur

[napi21]

4. Is this similar to the request by the Pubbies to allow ins cos

to sell across State lines? I admit I didn't know they had an anti-trust exemption.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

6. Interesting

Let's see how the RW accepts/rejects this.

If they love it we should probably hate it.

[tiptoe]

5. K & R !

[Barack_America]

7. Yes, please. nt

[Ruby the Liberal]

8. A 'threat'? They should just repeal it and be done with it.

Not so much about interstate commerce -- but allowing them to share data and price fix.

[dflprincess]

10. +1

[Hepburn]

9. Oh, YES!!!!

:applause: Way to go!

[TheKentuckian]

11. If they do this then we can actually regulate this industry

K&R!

[Vincardog]

12. Add this as an amendment to the Health insurance giveaway bill

[nashville_brook]

13. talk about SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!! where's the "free market" in this??

i had no idea they were exempt from anti-trust. f'n-a.