Dems Pass Legislation to End Health Insurance Industry Abusive Practices, Restore Competition

Today the House passed the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act to give the American people more choice in their health care by requiring health insurance companies to compete fairly and adhere to the same anti-trust laws as other companies.

Watch as one of the bill’s lead sponsors, Congressman Tom Perriello (VA-05), talks about his legislation:

For 65 years, the health insurance industry has been exempt from our nation’s anti-trust laws – allowing insurance companies to avoid legal accountability for price fixing, dividing up territories among themselves, and sabotaging their competitors in the marketplace in order to gain a monopoly.

In the last 14 years alone, there have been 400 mergers among health insurers and now 94% of all insurance markets are “highly concentrated” – meaning consumers have little or no choice between insurance providers.

That’s led to higher prices for consumers, a lower quality of coverage and limited choices. Today, Democrats voted to give Americans more health care choices than ever before.