What is the Bill
The Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act (H.R. 372) makes needed reforms to the McCarran-Ferguson Act to reduce health care costs for consumers by ensuring competition. By providing federal anti-trust scrutiny to an increasingly concentrated health insurance industry, this legislation accomplishes two goals:
- It will protect consumers from consolidation in the health care marketplace—consolidation that has increased under Obamacare.
- It will restore competition to the health care industry, bringing down costs and expanding choices for American consumers.
Our legislation also maintains the ability for insurers to engage in certain collaborative activities—like data sharing—that don’t compromise the spirit of fair competition. The President indicated he will sign this legislation when it gets to his desk, as the White House said it supports all efforts to “restore competition to the health insurance marketplace in order to lower costs and expand choices for consumers.”
Why this Bill
Under Obamacare, the cost of insurance has gone up while consumer choices have gone down. Premiums have skyrocketed and one-third of counties in America only have one provider in the individual marketplace. Some will soon have no providers. Republicans understand that fair competition offers the best results for the American people.
Leader McCarthy has this to say about the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act:
“This bill eliminates anti-trust protection for insurance providers and creates competition so Americans are not left with one or two choices for health coverage—which has been a growing reality in many parts of the country. Moving this legislation is a crucial step to establish a health care system that provides affordable care for all.”
The Three Phases of Health Care Reform
The Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act is just the first bill of phase three of our continued efforts to reform our health care system. Phase one, the American Health Care Act, accomplishes everything we are able to accomplish to create a patient-centered, free-market system through the budget reconciliation process, and phase two makes improvements through administrative actions from Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price to stabilize the markets, provide greater consumer choice, and bring down costs.
As Leader McCarthy said last week:
“Though reconciliation is a powerful legislative tool, we have always acknowledged that we must move separate legislation to fully repeal and replace Obamacare with a patient-centered, free-market system. In the weeks to come, we will consider several bills to increase patient choice and market competition and prevent abusive medical lawsuits. These bills are just the beginning of phase three of our continued efforts to reform our health care system so it works for the American people.”