Press Release: Ellison Votes to Restore Competition and Transparency to Health Insurance Industry

Press Release

Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) voted to increase competition and transparency to the health insurance industry when the House passed H.R. 4626, the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act.

Since 1945, the McCarran-Ferguson Act has exempted the business of insurance from all federal antitrust laws. This gave health insurers free rein to collude amongst themselves to fix prices, restrict what they would cover or how much they would reimburse, and deny their customers meaningful choice.

"I believe that consumers win when business competes, and health care is no exception," Ellison said. "This is a victory for working families facing exploding health care costs. We must create choice and competition to help fix our broken health care system - removing the anti-trust exemption is one way to achieve this, including a robust public option is another."

If this legislation becomes law, insurance companies will become liable for price fixing, dividing territories among themselves, or sabotaging their competitors in the marketplace in order to gain monopoly power.

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