Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, as an original cosponsor, I rise in strong support of legislation that will end the unfair advantages that health insurance companies currently enjoy today. I want to commend my colleagues Representatives Perriello and Betsy Markey for their leadership and advocacy on this very important issue.

I hope most of us would agree that health insurance companies should play by the same rules as every other industry in America. For far too long, the health insurance industry has been exempt from the Federal antitrust laws that govern other businesses. As a result, they are not subject to Federal laws banning price fixing, market manipulation, collusion, or other anticompetitive business practices.

It is apparent that there is no real competition in parts of the health insurance market. In the last few weeks, we have seen health insurance companies impose huge premium increases on consumers. Anthem Blue Cross of California announced a 39 percent price hike in premiums for their consumers. The Department of Health and Human Services has reported that several large health insurance companies across the country have requested premium increases of anywhere between 16 percent and 56 percent. These huge premium increases come after a year of record profits for the top five health insurance companies in America. Last year, as Americans struggled to pay their health insurance costs, insurance companies' profits jumped by 56 percent.

Quite simply, the legislation we are considering today will repeal the blanket antitrust exemption afforded to health insurance companies under the McCarran-Ferguson Act. We must hold health insurers accountable when they engage in anti-competitive behaviors that benefit their profit margins at the expense of American families.

Mr. Speaker, we are taking a small but very critical step towards health insurance reform and fixing a part of our broken health care system while Congress continues to work on comprehensive health care reform to bring more affordable and accessible care for all Americans. I urge my colleagues to support this much-needed bill.

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