Health Law Daily Wrap Up, FEDERAL LEGISLATION NEWS—Insurance antitrust exemption reform clears House, (Mar 24, 2017)
Organizations Mentioned:American Hospital Association
The House passed on March 22, 2017, H.R. 372, The Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act of 2017, with a bipartisan vote of 416 to 7. The Act repeals in part the McCarran-Ferguson Act antitrust exemption for insurers, including price fixing, bid rigging, and market allocation, and retains the exemption for certain collaborative activities. A CBO report projected that the Act would have no significant net effect on the premiums that private insurers would charge for health or dental insurance and that any effect on federal revenue would be negligible.
The report noted that health insurance premiums could be lower to the extent that enacting the bill would prevent insurers from engaging in practices currently exempted from antitrust law. On the other hand, insurers could become subject to additional litigation and thus their costs and premiums might increase. The CBO estimated that both of those effects would be small.
The American Hospital Association had expressed concerns about the abuse of market power by large commercial insurers with the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services previously.
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