Jim Sensenbrenner: “Listening to the arguments that have been advanced by the proponents of the bill, all I can say is what you hear is not…”

“Listening to the arguments that have been advanced by the proponents of the bill, all I can say is what you hear is not what you are going to get if this bill is enacted into law. There is a reason this antitrust exemption has survived now for 65 years, which is that it actually has encouraged competition because it allows smaller insurers to use the actuarial data that larger insurers are able to amass. If the smaller insurers can't get this actuarial data, which is what will happen if this bill is enacted into law, then they will either be gobbled up by the larger insurers, which get the data in-house, or they will go out of business. As a result, there will be less competition rather than more. So what you hear today about competition is not what you are going to get if this exemption is repealed. Now, repealing the limited exemption that health insurance carriers have under the McCarran-Ferguson Act is, at best, going to change little and, at worst, is going to be counterproductive. As the CBO concluded in October, repealing the exemption would have little or no effect on insurance premiums because State laws already bar the activities that would be prohibited under Federal law should the bill be enacted. Instead, additional regulatory burdens on insurers will likely be passed on to the policyholders in the form of higher premiums. This, my friends, is the majority's higher health insurance premium bill in the name of competition. It's not going to happen.”