I’d really be much happier with the health care reform bill if it strips the private insurance industry of their anti-trust exemption. And, they totally deserve to have that happen to them.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Recent Comments
at the very least, the very least.
Kings Nelson & Lieberman say no, so that’s that.
At this point, the next Majority Leader, whoever they are, must erase the filibuster at the start of the next session. This is unacceptable for the good of the country.
and Lieberman still has his chairmanship
I suppose stripping the anti-trust exemption can’t be done by reconciliation?
funny how that whole idea got swept under the rug
Obama and OFA, to whom I eventually gave about $3K, are now asking for more for 2010. My only joy in life at this point is composing the scathing replies that they receive in their postage paid envelopes.
Off topic – but we won’t have John Shadegg-R (AZ-03) to kick around anymore. He’s retiring, for reals, this time.
Obama and the Democrats have discovered that the insurance companies are lying pieces of shit!
And we’ve been in the dark on this for all these years.
Is there any rationale for their being exempt, other than that they want to be?
The antitrust issue could be addressed later, could it not?
The original intent of the exemption was to allow insurance companies to swap actuarial data on risk, etc. without running afoul of anti-trust provisions against firms engaging in collusion.
Data swapping could be OK’d without a blanket exemption. Better still, they could be required to submit actuarial data to a government agency which would combine it and make the combined data public.
Blunt instrument, legislation, There are unintended unintended consequences, and intended unintended consequences, heh, heh, to paraphrase Don Rumsfeld, famous Zen adept.
That plus a certain — ahem — ‘community of interest’ between the legislators and the legislatees.
What’s so blunt about it? Banks are required to submit much the same data.
Hear! Hear! Huzzah! and all that…
And there needs to be some restrengthening of anti-trust legislation in general to eliminate “too big to fail” institutions (including Major League Baseball).
Semi-OT, but I see that you’ve got to add AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka to the list of corporate tools.
Booman, I have to agree. they really have no reason to have an anti-trust protection and it needs to be done away with