Health Insurance Antitrust Immunity Repealed by U.S. House of Representatives

The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 4626 on February 24, legislation that repeals the McCarran-Ferguson Act antitrust immunity for the business of health insurance. The vote on final passage was 406-19.

The real battle on the House floor was over a Republican motion to bring the bill back to the House committee of jurisdiction for additional work. But that “motion to recommit” failed. NAIFA supported at least one idea to “improve” the legislation that was contained in the motion to recommit. That proposal would have allowed health insurance companies to continue to collect historical loss data. If H.R. 4626 becomes the law of the land, collection of historical loss data by health insurance companies would become an antitrust violation. NAIFA believes that the end result of passage of H.R. 4626 will be the elimination of smaller health insurance companies from the market place and even more reduction in competition within the health insurance industry.

As originally conceived, the bill that became H.R. 4626 would have also repealed the 1980 law supported by NAIFA that prevents the Federal Trace Commission from investigating all insurance and also removed the antitrust immunity for medical malpractice insurance. The House Democratic leadership agreed to drop those two provisions, principally because of the inside work of Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) and the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI).

One additional concern that NAIFA brought to Congress was that “health” insurance was not defined by the bill. The upshot of that could be that LTC, DI, medical provisions in auto insurance and even some aspects of life insurance could be construed by courts to be “health” insurance.

To address that concern, Chairman Conyers and Rep. Pomeroy engaged in a floor colloquy to clarify that life insurance, LTC, DI and the health component of property casualty insurance are not included in the definition of “business of health.” DI and LTC are technically health insurance products. Thus the need for this colloquy. Click here to read the colloquy.

The battle over the McCarran Ferguson Act now shifts to the Senate. So far NAIFA has been able to stop the repeal effort so far. But we will continue to have our work cut out for us

NAIFA Staff Contact: Michael Kerley, Senior Vice President – Federal Government Relations, at (703) 770-8155.