Title: Health Insurance Industry Antitrust Enforcement Act of 2017
Policy area: Health

Summary:
Health Insurance Industry Antitrust Enforcement Act of 2017
This bill prohibits the McCarran-Ferguson Act from being construed to permit health insurance or medical malpractice insurance issuers to engage in price fixing, bid rigging, or market allocations in connection with providing health insurance or medical malpractice coverage.
This bill amends the McCarran-Ferguson Act to provide that nothing in that Act modifies, impairs, or supersedes the operation of antitrust laws with respect to the business of health insurance. Prohibitions of unfair methods of competition apply to the business of health insurance without regard to whether the business is for profit.

[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 143 Introduced in House (IH)]

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115th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 143

   To prohibit anticompetitive activities and to provide that health 
insurance issuers and medical malpractice insurance issuers are subject 
  to the antitrust laws of the United States, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 3, 2017

 Mr. Conyers introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                       Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
   To prohibit anticompetitive activities and to provide that health 
insurance issuers and medical malpractice insurance issuers are subject 
  to the antitrust laws of the United States, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Health Insurance Industry Antitrust 
Enforcement Act of 2017''.

SEC. 2. PROHIBITION OF ANTICOMPETITIVE ACTIVITIES.

    Notwithstanding any other provision of law, nothing in the Act of 
March 9, 1945 (15 U.S.C. 1011 et seq., commonly known as the 
``McCarran-Ferguson Act''), shall be construed to permit health 
insurance issuers (as defined in section 2791 of the Public Health 
Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg-91)) or issuers of medical malpractice 
insurance to engage in any form of price fixing, bid rigging, or market 
allocations in connection with the conduct of the business of providing 
health insurance coverage (as defined in such section) or coverage for 
medical malpractice claims or actions.

SEC. 3. RESTORING THE APPLICATION OF ANTITRUST LAWS TO HEALTH SECTOR 
              INSURERS.

    (a) Amendment to McCarran-Ferguson Act.--Section 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) Related Provision.--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.
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