Update November 2009: Attorneys General from Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon, Maine, Arizona, Iowa, Montana, Florida, and Wyoming sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of legislation to strip health insurers of their antitrust exemption.
As part of the health care reform debate, a proposal to eliminate the antitrust immunity granted to insurance companies in certain situations is under review in Congress. The Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division recently testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Division supported, in principle, the removing of the antitrust exemption for insurance business. She testified that the exemption was adopted to facilitate state regulation of the insurance industry and that the antitrust laws as currently understood would not prohibit state regulation. The Division took no position as to the manner or timing of any repeal.