MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

Interview

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Meanwhile, Senators Leahy, Schumer and Reid announced their intention to add a similar measure over on the Senate side to the Senate Health Bills. Joining me now is Democratic Congresswoman Diana DeGette of Colorado, co-sponsor of the antitrust legislation that passed the House Judiciary Committee today.

Congresswoman, good work. It's about time.

REP. DIANA DEGETTE (D), COLORADO: Thank you. Yes, it seems like kind of a no brainer, doesn't it?

SCHULTZ: It really does. Do you think that this is going to be able to reel in the industry when it comes to price fixing and also allocation of competition in states? What do you think?

DEGETTE: The bill passed by the Judiciary Committee does just that. It says that now the Justice Department can look at whether there is price fixing and other kind of anti-competitive behavior going on. Right now, under current law, they can't do that.

SCHULTZ: I don't mean to be the fly in the ointment on this, but in the insurance industry, for an insurance company to go from one state to another state, they have to deal with state laws; they have to deal with the application process; they have to deal with the financial requirements; and there's always state politics. Do you really think that this antitrust exception is going to change competition across state lines?

DEGETTE: Well, here's the situation is-the reason insurance companies were made exempt from the federal antitrust laws is because they are mostly regulated in the states. As we're looking at putting together national health care legislation, we don't want insurance companies to engage in anti-competitive behavior.

One of the reasons health insurance is so costly right now is in most of the country, they're in a monopolistic situation. In Pueblo, Colorado, in my state, for example, one insurance company controls over 70 percent of the market. So we're hoping that our legislation will at least go part of the way toward encouraging competition, so that people don't have these monopolistic situations.

SCHULTZ: Well, the American Medical Association came out with a study, nationally. This is what it looks like: 94 percent of the top metropolitan insurance markets are anti-competitive. Also Alabama and North Dakota, in those two states 90 percent of the market is controlled by a single insurer.

Now those are not very well-populated states. Do you actually think that insurance companies are going to go into markets if they don't have the number of customers to make a profit?

DEGETTE: Well, I think-I think in the exchange people will have enough customers to make a profit. And who knows what will happen? I mean, if there's no-if there's nobody who wants to compete, then you won't be forcing people to go in there. Why should we exempt them from the anti trust laws? Why should we let them get together and say, OK, you can take this market, and you take that other market? Oh, by the way, we're going to set our prices a certain way. We don't want that type of thing to happen.

SCHULTZ: Congresswoman, good to have you with us tonight. I appreciate your time.

DEGETTE: Thank you.

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