NU Online News Service, Nov. 9, 3:51 p.m.EST

WASHINGTON–Ten property and casualty and life-healthinsurance trade groups have written lawmakers opposing a Househealth care bill provision to permit the Federal Trade Commissionto prepare studies and reports on their industry.

The letter sent Friday to every member of the House ofRepresentatives voiced "strong opposition" to an amendment to H.R.3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, added last weekby Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman-emeritus of the HouseEnergy and Commerce Committee.

The bill was approved Saturday by the House on a 220-215vote.

Another provision of the legislation would repeal the antitrustprotection accorded health and medical malpractice insurers by theMcCarran-Ferguson Act.

The letter is similar to the stance taken by the industry in2007, when Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa.,and Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., introduced legislation that wouldrepeal the McCarran-Ferguson Act.

In 2007 they introduced the bill in reaction to complaints byconsumers and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi thatinsurance companies were not paying claims for damages incurred byHurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The organizations' letter said rather than the antitrust issue,"as the bill's title implies, its goal should be to address issuesof health care coverage and affordability."

"This purpose is not served by allowing the FTC to investigateall lines of insurance (which is the job of state insuranceregulators)," the letter said.

"It is also not served by limiting the protections theMcCarran-Ferguson Act provides for pro-competitive insuranceactivities that are subject to scrutiny by state insuranceregulators, especially those that facilitate greater market accessby medical malpractice insurers," the letter added.

The amendment by Rep. Dingell provides for an even more sweepingexpansion of FTC authority by deleting the term "the businessof"–leaving only the term "insurance," the letter said.

"This amendment would not even limit the FTC's authority toactivities that have been found by the courts to be a part of the"business of insurance," but would instead vest the FTC withunfettered discretion to conduct investigations of virtuallyanything that falls within the term 'insurance' in any line," theletter said.