Posted on 02/24/2010 2:43:28 PM PST by Former Military Chick
Washington (CNN) -- The House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to repeal the antitrust exemption currently granted to health insurance companies.
The vote was 406-19 to repeal the exemption, which has been in place since the end of World War II. The 19 who voted against the repeal are Republicans.
Liberal Democrats have said a repeal would help inject competition into the health care industry while reducing consumer costs.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Tuesday that President Obama strongly supports the repeal. "At its core, health reform is all about ensuring that American families and businesses have more choices, benefit from more competition and have greater control over their own health care," Gibbs said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I agree. Except for some non-profit HMOs (that pay hefty salaries to the foundations’ leaders), health insurance carriers are in business to make a profit like any other insurance company. They should NOT have the anti-trust exemption under the guise of sharing actuarial data. It’s basically price-fixing.
The lawyers, insurance companies, and the bureaucrats have driven the cost of health care into the stratosphere.
“That’s right. TR is a rat.”
No...he is a Progressive.
“I don’t own a crystal ball but the laws of supply and demand say the prices should go down. The model of telephone company deregulation showed that would happen.”
But this isn’t deregulation. If you want the kind of competition that actually works, you need to allow the purchase of insurance across state lines. You need to give companies more opportunities to succeed, not fewer.
“Thomas Sowell does a nice exposition on that, I believe in Basic Economics.”
Unfortunately many ‘conservatives’ believe in a regulatory nanny state...just with lower taxes. And even on that issue they don’t understand that a temporary tax holiday won’t really help and could lead to even higher taxes once the holiday is over.
Politicians go after the companies they don’t like at the behest of other companies that have bought them. The separation of the corporate world from the political world is a naive fiction. There is no such thing a a private monopoly - period. All monopolies are private-public consortiums created for the purpose of forcing the prevention of competition, and focusing solely on the government side of the equation without acknowledging the corporate power behind it is absurd.
Because they believe in Capitalism. The rest of this pathetic country and the morons in the house don’t.
Republicans aren’t libertarians. Which means yes, there will be some government involvement to prevent monopolies.
“Republicans aren’t libertarians. Which means yes, there will be some government involvement to prevent monopolies.”
and all the GOP votes for the bailout and the ‘jobs’ bill.
As far as I can tell, the jobs bill was basically tax cuts. Now that I have a hard time being too against, even if they are situational. Bailouts are almost entirely bad, but not 100%.
If it’s such a good idea, why didn’t they try it out on Major League Baseball first?
Why did you choose that word? Do you consider the position of prosecuting attorney in the case to be somehow tyrannical or persecutory?
That said, seeing the president impeached and convicted would be my dream scenario.
Just a thought on healthcare, have the individual state on
on his tax, D.L. for instance, wheather he has insurance. Then create a pool and distribute these people to various ins. cos. with the gov. paying for the ins. for those who cannot afford ins. Oh fergit it, we’re broke anyway.
Is there a difference?
Can we get rid of any functional equivalent of the “antitrust exemption” for the government too? The Post Office, Social Security, etc . . .
Guys, if you are like me and not sure what this really even means or whether it is right or not, read this article from believe it or not, NPR...does a good job of summarizing the issue:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123421684&ft=1&f=1001
Honestly, I still am not sure how I feel about it. The CBO said the impact will be small regardless.
It could be a good thing....isn’t encouraging competition a CONSERVATIVE trait?
That said, it could end up badly and raise premiums. The exact result here is not clear.
Isn’t it a conservative trait to prefer state control over things? If you have insurance across state lines, then you are encouraging more federal government control.
I am on the fence on this one because I see how it could reduce costs.
But, it seems that both the right and left aren’t very consistent on issues like this, taking the opposite position that would be expected.
Insurance is controlled by state insurance commissions. Sale of insurance products is licensed state by state which is kind of silly.
The main reason is if you look at how auto insurance, property insurance and life insurance is sold those companies are typically not HQ’d in the state they’re writing policies for and it’s interstate commerce anyways.
Even in Pennsylvania health plans are written on a county by county basis. What’s big in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia is different and isn’t even sold in the opposite city. The commonwealth paid for insurance for the poor and uninsured (Funny how we have that funded here as part of the tobacco settlement.) has like 6 different zones with probably 20 different plans.
I would prefer state control over things but anything financial related with insurance products crosses state lines regardless.
Antitrust litigation promotes capitalism. It prevents price collusion and monopolies.
I’m not sure how this is going to bring prices down. Doesn’t it actually open up the floodgates for lawyers to accuse insurance companies of anti-trust behavior, then go sue the bejeezus out of them?
I believe the problem with this is that it will be a big pay-day for trial lawyers, as literally millions of people are now free to bring suit against health insurers.
As if things weren’t bad enough, now a significant amount of insurance dollars will be expended to either fight law suits or settle them.
If Congress wants to do something equally as brilliant, they should pass a law saying all judges and elected officials are also subject to litigation from constituents.
I’d like to see how long that would fly.
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