surprise! health insurers are EXEMPT from key anti-trust laws!

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Jim Warren <jwarren () well com>
> Date: October 15, 2009 12:37:28 PDT
> To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: surprise! health insurers are EXEMPT from key anti-trust  
> laws!

> What's all this conservative silliness about keeping the health- 
> insurance cartel as a free-market competitive industry?
>
> It turns out that, since the late 1940s, health insurance  
> conglomerates have been EXEMPT from key anti-trust controls!  They  
> can LEGALLY do price-fixing!  (And why haven't we heard about this  
> from the liberals, before now?!)
>
> --jim
>
> http://bit.ly/4AxXer
>
> ...
> Health Care for America Now's report [pdf] on insurance industry  
> abuses documents how Blue Cross Blue Shield in Massachusetts and a  
> big hospital made a deal to increase payments to providers, and  
> providers made a deal to not allow any other insurer to pay them  
> less. Thus, Blue Cross raised their rates, leading to a period of  
> skyrocketing premium increases in Massachusetts, the hospital got  
> rich off their locked in payments, and other hospitals and insurers  
> in the state had to scramble to keep up. In all, people had to pay  
> more, and those increased premiums were passed along to the  
> hospitals in on the deal.
>
> This kind of price fixing and deal making is absolutely illegal in  
> other businesses, but in the insurance industry, because of their  
> anti-trust exemptions, they're allowed to screw customers without  
> repercussions.
>
> Similarly, Health Care for America Now found that 94% of insurance  
> markets in this country are "highly concentrated," a Department of  
> Justice term that means these markets are at risk for monopoly. For  
> example, in Arkansas [pdf], Blue Cross Blue Shield controls 75% of  
> the market, a level of concentration that would raise anti-trust  
> lawsuits in any other industry.
>
> These kinds of market concentrations were caused by years of  
> mergers, mergers that would never have been allowed under normal  
> anti-trust rules. And this market concentration is a huge driver of  
> skyrocketing costs.
>
> Ending the anti-trust exemption would be a huge start towards ending  
> these abuses.
>
> The insurance industry needs two things: Real competition and an end  
> to their anti-trust exemption.
>
> Price fixing, backroom deals, collusion, and market-concentrating  
> mergers should once again be illegal in health insurance.  ...
>
> ... <SNIP> ...



-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com