There seems to be a general misunderstanding about whether or not the health insurers get to keep their anti-trust exemption.

To clear up this misunderstanding, I have pointed to Sec. 262. Restoring application of antitrust laws to health sector insurers. starting on page 150 of the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

People have read that section and still misunderstood it to mean the exact opposite of what it does mean.

Follow this link to a letter to the editor in the Worcester T & G, of all places, that helps explain. This is what the letter said:

The Constitution’s commerce clause establishes federal regulation of interstate commerce. The 1868 Supreme Court case Paul v. Virginia decided that insurance was not an interstate activity and should be state regulated. In 1944, the court decided in United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association, that insurance was clearly interstate commerce and should be federally regulated. In 1945, Congress delegated this federal responsibility back to the states with the McCarran-Ferguson Act. Fast-forward to current times, when reports like the 2007 American Medical Association study of competition among health insurers show that in a majority of states the private health insurance market is dominated 60 to 90 percent by one or two companies.

How’s it possible that only one or two insurers write most of the policies in a given state or locality? Is it super-efficient management that other companies simply cannot match? Is it just that few insurers are big enough to compete everywhere? Do the large sums of re-election campaign money from insurance lobbies play a role?

Regardless of the explanation, state regulation of insurance has evolved a health insurance system of local monopolies that benefit insurance companies far more than you or I, and we know the profit motive makes insurers more focused on their bottom line than on the welfare of their customers. If that’s your idea of how it should be done, then you will probably see little reason for reform. If not, you should be insisting on and supporting major changes that make people the top priority.

RONALD KENT

To this letter, I added the following reply:

Ronald,

Thanks for adding this vital piece of information.

The latest version of the House of Representatives’ Affordable Health Care for America Act has Sec. 262. Restoring application of antitrust laws to health sector insurers. starting on page 150.

That section starts off, with (a) AMENDMENT TO MCCARRAN-FERGUSON ACT.- Section 3 of the Act of March 9, 1945 (15 U.S.C. 1013), commonly known as the McCarran-Ferguson Act, is amended by adding at the end the following:

Just to give a flavor of some of what that section says, on page 152 is Except as provided in paragraph (2), nothing contained in this Act shall modify, impair, or supersede the operation of any of the antitrust laws with respect to price fixing, market allocation, or monopolization (or attempting to monopolize)

I surmised the gist of what you wrote from reading the current bill. Your details make it much clearer as to why this section was written in the way it was.