McCarren Ferguson Act
This was a Republican concession that favored the insurance lobbyists in 1946, which destroyed our once number one ranked healthcare nonprofit single prepayment system that was not a profit insurance system.healthcare is ever to recover from this tragic assault on on sick and disabled it must be repealed.
The Federal Trade Commission has repeatedly challenged such collective action as illegal price-fixing, even though doctors say they are at a severe disadvantage in trying to negotiate with giant insurance companies.
They are right without this act being repealed we will never see true healthcare reform.
I urge all to contact congressional and senate elected officials and tell them to repeal this Act.
I started lookig into this after watching C-Span towm hall meeting with Gene Taylor in Mississippi.Yes he is a blue dog and right now they are not my favorite dems but after listening to him I looked into this and the man is right.Researching this Act that allows insurance companies to literally raise cost and co-pays as a group shocked me.I looked further and stumble across several lobbyists alerts over the last sevarla decades to stop this from being repealed.They have alot of money to lobby congress but we have the internet and that is why I was able to find the information about this McCarren Ferguson Act
.
The McCarran-Ferguson Act does not itself regulate insurance, nor does it mandate that states regulate insurance. However, it does empower Congress to pass laws in the future that will have the effect of regulating the "business of insurance." However, federal acts that do not expressly purport to regulate the "business of insurance" will not preempt state laws or regulations that regulate the "business of insurance."
The Act also provides that federal anti-trust laws will not apply to the "business of insurance" as long as the state regulates in that area, but federal anti-trust laws will apply in cases of boycott, coercion, and intimidation.
It is just obscure enough that it is openly alerted and opposes any legislation to repeal this act that can be found amazingly fast.Here are a some I found quite easily.Actual Alerts that some of our elected officials are trying to repeal this act.Here are a few.
http://www.namic.org/...
http://www.insurancenewsnet.com/...
http://www.statefarm.com/...
Trent Lott and Gene Taylor learned about it the hard way when they both lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina.Amazingly when a couple of federal legislators homes get destoyed how bi-partisan congress can be.If that is what it takes to repeal this act so be it.There is legislation pending now and I strongly suggest we all raise our voices and demand this Act to be repealed.This will not be easy.Attempts to repeal this Act go back to the Carter Administration.Here is an interesting article from 1989.Note the insurance industries "concern" that attempt may have some steam back then.
http://money.cnn.com/...
There is hope and it is once again noted with concern .The word "concern" actually seems to be a code word to mobilize the lobbyists for the insurance industry.
The NY Times addressed this recently as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
The pending legislation is in the house right now.I have contacted Congressman Shuler's office to see if it is in committee or pending legislation and am awaiting his staff call to get details on his proposal to repeal this concrete roadblock to real healthcare reform.I will update this diary as soon as they provide me with this information.
Some more articles regarding The McCarren Ferguson Act of interest
http://www.pianet.com/...
http://www.insurancecoverageblog.com...
My DD did a great blog on this as well.
http://www.mydd.com/...