[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 404]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  (Mr. DeFAZIO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. DeFAZIO. The gentleman that spoke before me talked about 
transparency and accountability. Let's talk about the insurance 
industry pre-reform. They could cancel your policy if you got sick even 
though you had been paying the premiums for years. They could refuse to 
sell you a policy if they don't like the way you look or if you've had 
a minor health problem. We changed that. People can now get health 
insurance and keep their health insurance if they've been paying their 
premiums.
  But now they want to go back to those bad old days, and they talk 
about transparency and accountability. How accountable is an industry 
that is exempt from antitrust law? Health insurance companies can and 
do collude to exclude people from coverage, to red line, to drive up 
premiums, to not sell in one State, not compete with one another. 
There's no free market and competition and transparency and 
accountability.
  If the Republicans really wanted to do something today, and if they 
want to showboat with this repeal, they could at least replace it by 
making the industry comply with the same competitive rules as every 
other industry in America except for professional sports, and that is 
they would be subject to antitrust law restrictions.

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