PrintMarch 5, 2010
The Antitrust Trap for Health Care Insurance
There is a stealth legislative initiative flying below the media radar that will help enable the feds to drive private health care insurers out of business. On February 24, the House passed an amendment, HR 4626, to a 1945 piece of legislation called the McCarran-Ferguson Act. This amendment seeks to restore federal power over insurance regulation. The McCarran-Ferguson Act was a congressional response to a 1944 Supreme Court ruling on the case United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association. The Court decided that Congress does have the power to regulate insurance under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. A year later, The McCarran-Ferguson Act was passed to quell fears of federal infringement on states' rights. The act declares that the "business of insurance" is the prerogative of individual states unless federal law explicitly declares otherwise, such as in antitrust legislation. Ironically, the fear of Franklin Roosevelt's proposals through the...(Read Full Article)
