NU Online News Service
Legislation to repeal the antitrust exemption for health and medical malpractice insurers "will have no significant effect" on premiums charged for private health insurance, the Congressional Budget Office reported.
Responding to the CBO analysis, officials of the Physician Insurers Association of America, which represents medical malpractice insurers owned by physicians' groups, said the report refutes claims by "several consumer groups" that repealing the provision would reduce insurance costs by 20 percent.
Lawrence E. Smarr, president of the PIAA, added that the CBO report has "revealed that this legislation is in essence a politically motivated attempt to appease personal injury lawyers via a spurious bill."
The CBO's projections were based on an analysis of H.R. 3596, legislation passed by the House Judiciary Committee and incorporated into the overall House healthcare package, H.R. 3962, "the Affordable Health Care for America Act."
The House bill includes an amendment that provides "safe harbors", joint insurance industry activities protected from antitrust regulation, for example, compilation of historic loss data.
The omnibus bill may come up for House floor action as early as Friday.
The CBO said, "Based on information from the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, consumer groups, and private attorneys, CBO estimates that both of those effects would be very small, and thus that enacting the legislation would have no significant effect on the premiums that private insurers would charge for health insurance."
The CBO also said that to the extent that insurers would otherwise engage in the prohibited practices and be prevented from doing so by enactment of this bill, premiums might be lower. But, the CBO report said, "that effect is likely to be small because state laws already bar the activities that would be prohibited under federal law if this bill was enacted."
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