Our friends in the House voted yesterday to get rid of the exemption from the federal antitrust laws which they have used to control pricing and competition. If you are unsure of what I am talking about, go and start a health insurance company and see how far I get. I will even give you 5 million dollars to start with (figuratively). The barriers to entrance are incredible in this unfair industry.
Even the no play Republicans managed to vote yes on this measure surprising many who had thought they had quit (joke). Only 19 Congressmen voted no and I would love to provide their names to you so we could throw them out of office but I will instead give you the ring leaders so as not to encourage a lynching.
Of course this measure is almost entirely a move for politics as most experts including the CBO know that it will not reduce premiums possibly at all. It might though encourage more people to enter this field and start companies which never hurts consumers.
Up till now, health insurance companies were regulated by state governments which were given the job of preventing price fixing and gouging etc.
Now the bill moves to the Senate who will probably not have time to even consider the bill as they are busy ruining health reform.
The Republicans at least came forward and admitted the move was almost entirely political and thus voted for it as to not look like health insurance company employees. The GOP wisely sat this one out and did not advise its members to oppose.
“The Congressional Budget Office has noted that the states already have the laws on the books to prevent what we are trying to deal with here,” said one Congressmen.
This move comes on the heels of Obama trying to regulate health insurance premium increases and is part of multi pronged approach to fixing health care which up till now has been as successful as a Toyota recall.
Also on Wednesday to continue with the theme of making largely useless motions, Democrats again piled on WellPoint, owner of the Anthem Blue Cross in California that has been pressing a major premium increase.
Obviously health insurance companies don’t support the antitrust repeal legislation, but knowing the situation didn’t even bother to mobilize its lobbyists to oppose it.
One consumer group believes that the anti trust legislation could save up to $5 billion a year if passed, but there is no real basis for their estimates and they had spent much of the day drinking beers in the sun.
“If there was greater investigation of concentration [of insurance companies in a region] and thorough antitrust enforcement, there could be greater savings,” said J. Robert Hunter, director of insurance for the CFA.
