How Congress Can End 60+ Years of Insurance Industry Rip-off and Collusion

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/145790/how_congress_can_end_60%2B_years_of_insurance_industry_rip-off_and_collusion


Since 1945, health insurance companies have been allowed to collude to fix prices. Next week, Congress will vote on whether to reinstate its anti-trust provisions.


February 23, 2010 It's a simple idea: make health insurance companies compete for the business of Americans.

It's also a simple question: would your Congressperson defend your interests over those of a group of large corporations that can spend lots of money helping or hurting his or her re-election chances? In light of the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, which allows corporations to spend an unlimited amount of money in elections, the stakes are substantially higher than they used to be: now those corporations can spend millions from their treasuries to retaliate against or reward members of Congress. That spending can be sufficiently large to make or break an election.

Next week we are likely to get an unambiguous answer to that question for every member of the US House of Representatives, thanks to a bill introduced by Virginia Representative Tom Perriello. Perriello, a favorite target of the Tea Party protesters, seems to have gotten a clear message from both sides of the political spectrum: Congress needs to stop catering to big corporations and start fighting for ordinary people. So he's going straight for the insurance companies' jugular in an opening salvo for larger reform, introducing a bill to "restore the application of the Federal anti-trust laws to the business of health insurance to protect competition and consumers." His bill is wonderfully short and spare: it's two pages long, a mere twenty-nine lines of substantive text. It contains no loopholes and no compromises. It does one thing only: it applies federal anti-trust laws to health insurance companies.

It is a clean litmus test for determining whose side a representative is on.


MORE at the link above --

[Captain Hilts]

1. Repeal the anti-trust exemption. MOST important thread of today. nt

[RT Atlanta]

2. K&R

Let's get this to the front page

[sharesunited]

3. This will do nothing about the smoke screen of actuarial consensus.

If actuaries at different insurance companies "independently" agree as to risks and premiums, it is going to be terribly difficult to prove collusion. After all, statistical data is "objective."

No, the only solution is to regulate premiums like public utilities are regulated.

[Donnachaidh]

4. who write the actuaries?

Serious question.

If it turns out that it is the insurance companies that write these tables - then perhaps we need the government to go back over them, and issue new tables that the companies cannot get together on to price fix?

[sharesunited]

5. I'm all for price fixing, as long as it is the government which is doing it.

That is what utility company rate regulation is all about.

[Donnachaidh]

6. exactly! n/t

[PHIMG]

7. Anti-trust repeal = rearranging the deck chairs on the titantic . Solution is MEDICARE FOR ALL

[Donnachaidh]

8. I agree with you - HOWEVER

The ENTIRE insurance industry needs to be reined in and put under the heavy pressure of regulation and the very real possibility of being sued into bankruptcy -- ALL of them. That includes home, auto and health insurance.

Until we find a viable alternative to what is basically a legal ponzi game (insurance) we need to place them under a microscope and allow them NO wiggle room. None.

[PHIMG]

9. No comparison between health and auto/home insurance

There is no need for a private market in health insurance. They only way to "regulate" them is to eliminate them via Medicare for All.

If we want to do reform in other insurance products then by all means we can do that on a state-by-state level.