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NU Online News Service, Nov. 20, 11:15 a.m. EST
Health insurance representatives said they are concerned lawmakers may still move to amend health care legislation on the Senate floor to include a repeal of their industry’s antitrust exemption.
Officials of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors/AHIA also noted that the only reference to antitrust laws found in the initial review of the Senate bill deal with respect to co-ops and nonprofit insurance provided through co-ops.
That section specifies that application of antitrust laws will not be limited with respect to co-op insurance, a NAIFA official said.
Tom Currey, NAIFA president, said the bill does not appear to contain the House-passed bill’s authority for Federal Trade Commission study of all lines of insurance, or its imposition of antitrust rules relative to health and medical malpractice rate-making and market share planning.
Industry officials, he said, are also concerned that no provision tightening medical malpractice laws is included in the Senate bill, despite the fact that the public appears to be supporting such controls.
Larry Smarr, president/CEO of the Physician Insurers Association of America, Rockville, Md. said his members are “heartened” the Senate bill does not include provisions to set aside McCarran-Ferguson Act anti-trust exemptions for medical liability insurers.”
But, other industry lobbyists noted that S. 1681, which does repeal exemptions for health and malpractice insurers, was reported out last month by the Senate Judiciary Committee and has 16 cosponsors and its language will likely be offered on the Senate floor in the form of an amendment.
That is preferable to having the exemption repeal language in the actual text, Mr. Smarr said, because it will then be subject to individual scrutiny, rather than being buried in the context of the larger health care bill.
“Our goal now is to continue to educate senators about how repealing McCarran [Ferguson Act] will be anti-competitive and could actually harm consumers rather than help them,” he said.
“The attempt to set aside McCarran-Ferguson protections continues to be a ruse for distracting attention from much needed tort reform, which is not addressed in a meaningful way by the Senate bill,” he said.
He added it’s ironic “in the face of a new AP poll which shows that 54 percent of Americans want Congress to deal with medical liability lawsuits driving up the cost of medical care, while only 32 percent are opposed.”
The U.S. Senate, he said, is voting for the trial lawyers’ group American Association for Justice, “not the American people.”