1.This Act may be cited as the
Competitive Health Insurance Reform
Act of 2011
.
2.The Congress finds the following:
(1)Open, free, and
fair competition has made the United States the strongest economy in the
world.
(2)As a general
proposition, Government should ensure that no industry obtains an unfair
competitive advantage and that the playing field is equal. The Congress should
not play favorites with certain industries or special interest groups by
exempting one group from the general application of the law.
(3)There is no
factual basis supporting any further exemption of the insurance industry from
Federal antitrust and unfair competition laws.
(4)Enforcement of these laws is most
appropriately done through the U.S. Department of Justice, and in the case of
aggrieved individuals through private actions as set forth in the existing
statutes, but that class actions suits based on antitrust theories can
themselves pose a hindrance to competition among insurance companies, and to
higher prices for consumers, because of the resources they can consume.
3.It is the purpose of this Act to ensure that
health insurance issuers and medical malpractice insurance issuers are subject
to the same antitrust and unfair trade practices laws that all businesses have
had to comply with and that these issuers would be subject to Federal laws
against price fixing, bid rigging, or market allocations to the detriment of
competition and consumers. This Act remedies a special exemption provided by
Congress in 1945 to respond to the United States Supreme Court decision
entitled United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association, wherein the
Court correctly held that the Federal Government could regulate insurance
companies under the authority of the commerce clause in the Constitution. This
Act would also retain enforcement of these laws with State and Federal law
enforcement agencies and allow private causes of action by aggrieved consumers
harmed by unfair trade practices, but would prohibit class actions based on
antitrust legal theories against insurance companies.
4.Restoring the
application of antitrust laws to health sector insurers
(a)Amendment to
McCarran-Ferguson ActSection 3 of the Act of March 9, 1945 (15
U.S.C. 1013), commonly known as the McCarran-Ferguson Act, is amended by adding
at the end the following:
(c)Nothing contained in this Act shall modify,
impair, or supersede the operation of any of the antitrust laws with respect to
the business of health insurance. For purposes of the preceding sentence, the
term antitrust laws has the meaning given it in subsection (a) of
the first section of the Clayton Act, except that such term includes section 5
of the Federal Trade Commission Act to the extent that such section 5 applies
to unfair methods of
competition.
.
(b)For purposes of section 5 of the Federal Trade
Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 45) to the extent such section applies to unfair
methods of competition, section 3(c) of the McCarran-Ferguson Act shall apply
with respect to the business of health insurance without regard to whether such
business is carried on for profit, notwithstanding the definition of
Corporation
contained in section 4 of the Federal Trade
Commission Act.
(c)Limitation on
class actions
(1)No
class action may be heard in a Federal or State court on a claim against an
insurer for a violation of any of the antitrust laws (as defined in section
3(c) of the Act of March 9, 1945 (15 U.S.C. 1013), commonly known as the
McCarran-Ferguson Act).
(2)Paragraph (1) shall not apply with respect
to any action commenced—
(A)by the United
States or any State; or
(B)by named individual claimants for their
particular injuries.