Lamar Smith: “2 years ago, during the debate over the Obama administration's unconstitutional health care bill, this House considered…”

“2 years ago, during the debate over the Obama administration's unconstitutional health care bill, this House considered a measure similar to this amendment. During that debate, I argued that the repeal of the McCarran-Ferguson antitrust exemption for health insurers had ``all the substance of a soup made by boiling the shadow of a chicken.'' However, I reluctantly supported that bill because I believed that it would have no meaningful effect. Compared to the administration's health care bill, a bill that does nothing looked like a great idea. As I noted during the debate 2 years ago, the repeal of the McCarran- Ferguson exemption for health insurers will not bring down premiums. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that ``whether premiums would increase or decrease as a result of this legislation is difficult to determine, but in either case the magnitude of the effect is likely to be quite small.'' The effects of the repeal of this exemption will be small. The CBO says, ``State laws already bar the activities that would be prohibited under Federal law if this bill was enacted.'' Every State's insurance regulations ban anticompetitive activities like bid rigging, price fixing and market allocation. Every State has insurance regulators who already actively enforce these prohibitions. This amendment, like the bill we considered 2 years ago, will have no meaningful impact and may have minor negative unintended consequences.…”