The U.S. House of Representatives appears likely to consider repealing the McCarran-Ferguson Act, which exempts health and malpractice insurance companies from federal antitrust regulations. Reps. Tom Perriello (D-VA) and Betsy Markey (D-CO) have been saying since February 3 that they plan to introduce such legislation.
The winter storms that paralyzed the capital delayed them, but now Washington bloggers say the legislation could be introduced as early as the week of February 22. Politico, meanwhile, reported that the bill might be narrowed to focus on health insurance, leaving malpractice insurers exempt.
Repealing the act is among the top legislative priorities of the ADA and the Academy of General Dentistry. They argue that the exemption, put in place in 1945, restricts competition and that eliminating it could lower the cost of insurance.
Insurance companies say that they are already tightly regulated by state antitrust laws and that there is plenty of competition among them. Small insurance companies might actually be hurt, they say, because they would no longer have access to actuarial data collected by big companies.
Analyzing an earlier version of such legislation, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that striking the exemption was unlikely to have a significant effect on insurance rates.
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