Washington, D.C.--Congressman Eliot Engel voted today to ensure that American consumers get a real choice and a fair deal when purchasing health insurance. The Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act (HR 4626) would take away the anti-trust exemption for health insurance companies, requiring them to compete fairly and adhere to the same anti-trust laws as other companies. The bill overwhelmingly passed the full House by a vote of 406-19.

“Insurance companies have continually been raising their rates and fees on consumers while turning record profits. Our working families have faced higher premiums, lower quality of coverage, limited choices and the ever-growing specter of being completely unable to afford coverage at all,” said Rep. Engel, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health. “Health insurance companies have held their ‘get out of jail free’ card with their anti-trust exemption for far too long. It is time they played by the same rules as every other industry.”

For 65 years, the health insurance industry has been legally exempt from anti-trust laws, and the federal government was banned from investigating evidence of possible collusion. In the last 14 years alone, there have been 400 mergers among health insurers and now 94% of all insurance markets are “highly concentrated” – meaning consumers have little or no choice between insurance providers.

“Only the insurance industry and Major League Baseball have enjoyed anti-trust exemptions, and we know from the 1994 baseball strike how well that has worked for baseball fans. Americans deserve fairness when it comes to their sports entertainment value, and deserve it infinitely more when searching for something as crucial as health insurance coverage.”

Health insurers that were previously exempt from anti-trust laws would now bear legal responsibility for price fixing, dividing up territories among themselves and sabotaging their competitors in order to gain a monopoly in the marketplace. Such practices have been outlawed in other industries for decades.

“Our economy is based on the concept of competition. If it works for every other industry, and for the overwhelming majority of our citizens, then it should work just fine for the health insurance industry,” added Rep. Engel.
The legislation is supported by numerous groups including the American Hospital Association, American Nurses Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, Center for Justice and Democracy, and U.S. PIRG.