Teach them to produce a bogus report exactly at the wrong time (Now The Democrats Have An Enemy: The Health Insurance Industry). The Wall St Journal:
The House health-care bill would repeal an exemption from federal antitrust oversight that the health-insurance industry has enjoyed for decades, but the move alone might not make local insurance markets more competitive.
The 1945 law, the McCarran-Ferguson Act, gave states the power to regulate insurers and freed companies from federal antitrust authority in areas where state laws existed. In other areas, such as mergers and acquisitions, insurers continued to be monitored by the Department of Justice.
The law was originally passed so that insurers could pool information about risk that many were too small to determine from their own claims experience. It is limited to actions such as actuarial predictions that fall under the definition of the "business of insurance." Most legal experts believe its scope is fairly narrow.
Still, with the exemption removed, oversight of the industry could be stepped up, since the Obama administration has signaled a tougher stance against anticompetitive activity. Insurers could face more lawsuits alleging anticompetitive practices, and the Federal Trade Commission could investigate consumer protection violations more easily.
Rep. Diana DeGette (D., Colo.), one of several members of Congress behind a push to repeal the antitrust exemption, said it is necessary to inject competition into regional insurance markets. She cited American Medical Association figures showing that 94% of those markets are highly concentrated ...
America's Health Insurance Plans, the health insurance industry's trade group, said insurance is heavily regulated by the states, where antitrust laws mirror federal rules prohibiting price-fixing and collusion ... Robert Zirkelbach, an AHIP spokesman, said the group is specifically concerned about the fate of projects like one it recently introduced in Ohio where eight insurers collaborated to set up a new portal that doctors can use to file claims ...
Mr. Zirkelbach said the issue is actually low on AHIP's list of priorities. That's because of a widespread belief that the law is toothless and outdated, which might be another reason to get rid of it. "It's a historical anomaly. The rationale for the exemption has dissipated," said Tim Greaney, director of the Center for Health Law Studies at St. Louis University Law School.
The more significant shift for the insurance industry could be stepped-up enforcement. Taking antitrust authority out of the hands of state agencies, which are often underfunded and understaffed, could result in more enforcement actions.
"Theoretically state insurance regulators should be looking at price fixing, but as a practical matter the Justice Department and the federal government have the expertise," said Jon Leibowitz, the Federal Trade Commission's chairman. "If the antitrust exemption is repealed, the Justice Department will be able to apply the whole panoply of antitrust laws, while they are currently limited to mergers and group boycotts."
The Obama administration has already been stepping up antitrust enforcement after a more laissez-faire approach during the Bush administration. For instance, even though the Justice Department can intervene in health-insurance mergers, more than 400 health insurers have merged in the past decade with only two drawing Justice Department challenges, according to David Balto, an antitrust attorney at the liberal Center for American Progress.
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