Posted by David Fischer
on Wednesday, October 21st 2009 at 3:24 pm under Antitrust.
The Washington Post reports:
The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to strip federal antitrust protections shielding health insurers from investigations into price fixing and other business practices, the first step in a legislative bid to clamp down on the much-maligned industry.
Although Democrats have led the repeal push in recent weeks, the committee’s 20-9 vote came with the support of three Republicans. The legislation would repeal portions of the 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act that allows states to regulate health insurance providers without federal intervention.
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October 22nd, 2009 at 8:33 am
From the linked article:
In a letter sent to Conyers before the vote, Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry trade group, criticized the legislation as attempting “to remedy a problem that does not exist.”
I wish I knew what non-existing problem Ignagni was referring to: was it the claimed absence of agreements that would violate §1 but for McC-F, or was it the claimed absence of consumer harm?