AHIP Pans Antitrust Exemption Bill - HR 4626

Life and Health National Underwriter ^ | 2/24/2010 | ARTHUR D. POSTAL

[justlittleoleme]

House leaders expect to bring H.R. 4626, the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act bill, up for debate on the House floor today.

Members of the House Rules Committee agreed Tuesday to send the HIIFCA bill, which was introduced by Reps. Thomas Perriello, D-Va. and Betsy Markey, D-Colo., to the floor with a rule providing for 2 hours of debate. Lawmakers can consider one motion to send the bill back to committee.

The bill would repeal McCarran-Ferguson Act antitrust exemption for the business of health insurance -- and only the business of health insurance. Earlier versions of H.R. 4626 and similar antitrust bills had included medical malpractice insurance.

Rules Committee members approved the rules for consideration of H.R. 4626 by a voice vote. They voted 3-7, in a recorded vote, to reject an amendment proposed by Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif. The Dreier amendment would have let a Republican lawmaker propose an amendment to "allow the sharing of historical loss data and actuarial services among health insurance companies."

America’s Health Insurance Plans, Washington, says implementing the bill would do more harm than good.

[justlittleoleme]

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h4626ih.txt.pdf

[apillar]

Just another attempt to backdoor in government healthcare.

The original goal of the dems was to create a "public option" that would destroy the insurance industry because they wouldn't be able to compete with the federal government, eventually leading to a totally government run healthcare system like Britain.

Now that the public option is basically dead. They are going about it from a different angle. Put the insurance industry out of business first by forcing the them to cover everybody and then telling them they can't raise their rates. Once they've driven out enough insurance companies to make insurance difficult to find at any price, then they come in with the public option to "save the day".