Monday, March 15, 2010

#1205 Good News Is

An interesting thing happened on Wednesday, February 24, 2010. An incredibly significant piece of legislation regarding health care passed the House of Representatives of the United States Congress. But wait, there’s something even more amazing. It passed with a huge outpouring of bipartisan support.
The vote was 406 to 19.
And here’s the really really amazing thing. No one heard about it. It was buried at the bottom of the news stack. I, a news junkie, had to find a rusty twisted spoon in the back of the bureau drawer and use a crumpled old folder of matches to smoke it out.
In what should have been one of the stories of the decade, a measure passing with enormous bipartisan support, we heard nary a whimper from our hallowed halls of journalism.
I guess because it didn’t involve hate, histrionics, and hysterical hair-pulling.
It was a boring and reasonable act. The House lifted the anti-trust exemption that insurance companies have enjoyed since 1945. Yes, I said anti-trust exemption. Since the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945, insurance companies have been able to get together and legally fix prices, collude with one another, carve up territories and divide the market amongst themselves.
This has led to large insurance companies, with larger budgets than most states, to strong-arm said states into regulatory submission. Or else no other insurance company will service them. There has been no federal protection to turn too.
Imagine if a cable company had a monopoly to service an area without little or no regulation.
Oh yeah, right...
The public needs to know though, because the bill may be DOA at the Senate. The insurance companies have fewer people to buy there. So write your Senator.
Why? The Consumer Federation of America estimates the new competition fostered by removing the anti-trust exemption will save us 10 billion a year.
So there you have it, trust busting, a healthcare breakthrough, and an incredible act of bipartisanship, saving consumers 10 billion a year in a horribly strapped economy. And no front-page headline.
They used to say no news is good news.
Apparently these days it’s “good news is no news.”
America, ya gotta love it.

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