Health Insurance Anti-Trust Exemption

[MulaMan]

Never knew health insurance companies were exempt from anti-trust laws!

Can't wait to see Republicans arguments on this: anti-trust laws are bad for free trade and capitalism, we need to support price-fixing especially in health insurance, LOL, blah blah blah...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33414313...h_care_reform/

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Health Insurance Anti-Trust Exemption

Never knew health insurance companies were exempt from anti-trust laws!

Can't wait to see Republicans arguments on this: anti-trust laws are bad for free trade and capitalism, we need to support price-fixing especially in health insurance, LOL, blah blah blah...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33414313...h_care_reform/

My understanding is that the exemption (McCarran Ferguson Act of 1945) was a probably reasonable at the time, but is laughable now. In 1945 there were no computers. The actuary work required a small army of statisticians and clerks at each company to keep data on thousands of paper forms and do millions of calculations with pencils. To foster competition, insurance companies were allowed to share their risk determinations, claims histories, and pricing decisions with each other to avoid each company doing the work from scratch.
Here we are in the 21st century using this law to collude on high prices, nothing more