Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST NEWS: House Bill Would End Antitrust Exemption for Business of Health Insurance, (Mar 4, 2013)

By Jeffrey May, J.D.

Last week, legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives to end the antitrust exemption for the business of health insurance. The proposed "Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act of 2013" (H.R. 911) was introduced by Rep. Paul Gosar (Arizona) on February 28.

Specifically, the proposal would amend the McCarran-Ferguson Act, which exempts the insurance industry from the antitrust laws. The legislation would not impact the exemption for the business of life insurance or the business of property or casualty insurance. According to the proposal's findings, there is no factual basis supporting any further exemption of the health insurance industry from Federal antitrust and unfair competition laws.

“As a practicing dentist for 25 years, I have experienced first-hand the difficulties patients face with their insurance companies,” said Rep. Gosar, in a March 1 release. “My legislation would restore competition within the health insurance market and apply anti-trust laws to the industry. Amending the McCarran-Ferguson Act will benefit patients across the country with lower prices and more choices.”

In the last Congress, the House passed a repeal of the antitrust exemption for health insurance as part of the "Protecting Access to Healthcare Act" or "PATH Act," which was an attempt to repeal portions of the two-year-old health care overhaul. Gosar’s "Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act of 2012" was added to that bill as an amendment. That measure included a ban on private class actions against health insurers in addition to the repeal of the antitrust exemption. Only individual claimants would have been permitted to sue health insurers for their particular injuries through private actions. It was reasoned that enforcement was most appropriately done through the Department of Justice.

Gosar's latest proposal does not include the ban on class actions. As a result, this measure is more likely to get support from House Democrats, who found the class-action ban contained in past versions of the legislation objectionable.

News: Antitrust