John Garamendi: “Members of the House, we have before us a very simple but extremely important proposal by our Republican colleagues to…”

“Members of the House, we have before us a very simple but extremely important proposal by our Republican colleagues to provide the insurance industry with the opportunity to continue to collude, to set prices, and to harm the consumers. Call it a safe harbor. It is indeed a very safe harbor to do what is illegal in every other portion of the American economy except for baseball. So why should we approve what the Republicans want here? No good reason at all. Competition is necessary. A safe harbor is specifically designed to allow the insurance companies to continue to gather specific information that they then use to set prices and to collude and to harm the consumers as well as the providers. There are two cases out there over the last decade in which the industry has clearly colluded and harmed providers, a case in New York and another case that was put against the insurance companies by the doctors. This proposed amendment by Congressman Lungren would harm both the providers as well as the consumers, and provide a safe harbor to do what is illegal in every other part of the American economy, that is to set prices. We ought not to do it. We ought to put this aside.”