Sen. Charles SchumerThe long-simmering tension between insurers and congressional Democrats is erupting into open warfare, with lawmakers stepping up their push to revoke a key federal protection for the insurance industry.
A Sen. Schumer Press Release—Days after the health insurance industry openly declared it will use the emerging health care reform overhaul as an excuse to raise premiums on millions of Americans, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) urged Wednesday that the legislation should include a new provision to revoke the industry’s anti-trust exemption.
By virtue of the McCarran-Ferguson Act, passed by Congress in 1945, the insurance industry is one of only a handful of select industries in the United States, such as Major League Baseball and railroads, to be exempted from federal antitrust laws................
Schumer called for attaching a floor amendment to the health care bill that Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to bring to the floor later this month...........
A repeal of McCarran-Ferguson would have the effect of restoring the federal government’s power to curtail price-fixing, collusion and other anti-competitive practices that may exist within the health insurance industry.
(How about opening up insurance across state lines?)
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