Will The Insurance Companies Lose Their Anti-Trust Exemption With This Bill?

?

They're going to have to deal with that in a separate bill. It had to be removed from this bill because it's not a budgetary item and can't be in a reconciliation bill.

All the important restraints on the insurance industry are by their very nature non-budgetary.

Forcing this into reconciliation works very well for them.

as the house did overwhelmingly a few weeks ago.

If we can force Reid to bring it to the floor, many Republicans in the senate
may very well be afraid to vote against this as we get closer to the elections.
I suggest that us writing emails to Reid, and to our own senators could get the
ball rolling on this.....cause I believe that it can very well be done quite
efficiently, I might add.


House votes to kill antitrust exemption for health insurers
February 24, 2010 9:38 p.m. EST

Washington (CNN) -- The House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to repeal the antitrust exemption currently granted to health insurance companies.

The vote was 406-19 to repeal the exemption, which has been in place since the end of World War II. The 19 who voted against the repeal are Republicans.

Liberal Democrats have said a repeal would help inject competition into the health care industry while reducing consumer costs.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Tuesday that President Obama strongly supports the repeal. "At its core, health reform is all about ensuring that American families and businesses have more choices, benefit from more competition and have greater control over their own health care," Gibbs said.

"This is a complimentary step along the way," he said.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/24/health.antitrust/index.html

Thanks for that.

:toast:

with antitrust legislation.

This is just Round One. We have a lot of fighting yet to do. Just like when Social Security started.

Thank you, all.

however a separate bill repealing the antitrust exemption passed the House by a large majority (even loon Michele Bachmann voted for it). It's probably stalled (like so many other things) in the Senate.