Dear Attorney General Garland and Chair Khan:
We write today regarding the recently expanded antitrust authorities of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the health insurance industry following the enactment of the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act (CHIRA) of 2020.
The CHIRA protects consumers from anticompetitive practices by repealing the McCarran-Ferguson Act’s outdated antitrust exemption for the health insurance industry. Decades of consolidation by health insurance brokers has primed the industry for abuse, allowing insurers to exert market power in order to raise premiums, restrict competition, and deny consumers choice.
[1] Despite the clearly anticompetitive nature of these practices, before the CHIRA was enacted, regulators lacked the power to stop insurers’ misconduct due to the industry’s antitrust exemption. For example, as recently as last December, a U.S. District Court dismissed antitrust claims against the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association for allegedly conspiring with its members to deny patients and providers insurance coverage for telemetry monitors, holding that the Association was immune from suit.