[Fwd: Why isn't health insurance price fixing and collusion illegal?]

[Guest guest]

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Why isn't health insurance price fixing and collusion illegal?

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:21:53 -0400

Jeremy Funk, Americans United <info

info

Donna Cinelli <d.cinelli1

 

 

 

Americans United For Change

<http://www.americansunitedforchange.org/page/m/1baf371d/1ddc416a/a11bcfc/56aa64\

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Dear Donna,

 

Ever wonder why a little bit of healthy competition has the big bad

insurance companies quaking in their cleats? Maybe it's because they've

never had to compete for business before. Like baseball, the health

insurance industry is exempt from anti-trust laws and can legally have a

virtual monopoly in the marketplace. But in baseball, when the players

try to fix the game, they get in trouble. When health insurers fix the

game, they get ... rich.

 

No wonder health insurance companies are swinging wildly at anything

they think could kill reform. On Monday they even released a report

threatening to raise insurance rates if health insurance reform passed

the Senate. But the real reform team is fighting back.

 

On Wednesday, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid took the rare step of

testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the negative

effects of the anti-trust exemption for insurance companies.

 

Will you stand with Senator Reid and send a message to the Senate

Judiciary Committee demanding that health insurance reform include the

repeal of the insurance industry's anti-trust exemption?

<http://www.americansunitedforchange.org/page/m/1baf371d/1ddc416a/a11bcfc/56aa64\

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Tell Congress

<http://www.americansunitedforchange.org/page/m/1baf371d/1ddc416a/a11bcfc/56aa64\

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Here's what one of the nation's top anti-trust lawyer said at the same

hearing. The " antitrust exemption is very expansive with regard to

anything that can be said to fall within 'the business of insurance,'

.... As a result, 'the most egregiously anticompetitive claims, such as

naked agreements fixing price or reducing coverage, are virtually always

found immune.' "

 

Translated, that means the health insurance companies can do anything

they want - fix prices, corner the market on policies - and get away

with it.

 

In any other industry these kinds of practices would result in federal

investigations and prosecution, but the insurance industry's lobbyists

have been able to fight reform for too long. Watch our latest ad running

in Washington about the insurance industries anti-trust exemption and

sign our petition to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

<http://www.americansunitedforchange.org/page/m/1baf371d/1ddc416a/a11bcfc/56aa64\

2e/3858682837/VEsC/>

 

- Jeremy

 

PS. It's clear that we need more insurance competition with a public

option and the end to the insurance industry's outrageous anti-trust

exemption.

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2e/3858682837/VEsD/>

 

 

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