NU Online News Service, Jan.14, 3:29 p.m. EST

WASHINGTON–Eighteen Democratic senators have written congressional leaders and the White House urging that the final health care reform bill draft include language repealing the antitrust exemption afforded health and medical liability insurers.

At the same time, insurance industry officials are lobbying senators not to vote for any final bill that includes such a provision, especially as it regards medical liability insurers.

The senators' letter was written under the aegis of Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and sent to President Obama, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the speaker of the House. They are leading intense negotiations aimed at producing a compromise bill combining versions of health care delivery reform legislation passed by the House and Senate.

"For nearly 65 years, the insurance industry has been exempt from federal antitrust laws. Regulation of the insurance industry has been left with the states, which often lack the time and resources to effectively investigate antitrust conspiracies," the senators wrote.

Thus, the letter said, "the competitive activities of health insurers and medical malpractice insurers remain effectively unchecked."

"While there are divergent views on the best way to introduce choice and competition into the health insurance market, we can surely agree that health and medical malpractice insurers should not be allowed to collude to set prices and allocate markets," the letter added.

The letter noted that the House version contains such a provision, while the Senate version does not. It explained that the Senate failed to include one despite the fact that 23 senators co-sponsored an amendment to the Senate bill that would have repealed the antitrust exemption.

"Regrettably, there was no opportunity for it to be offered during Senate debate," the letter said.

"This reform is long overdue and the time to act is now," the letter said. "We look forward to working with you to ensure that repeal of the antitrust exemption for health insurers and medical malpractice insurers is included in the final health insurance reform bill that is signed into law," it added.

Meanwhile, as part of the insurers lobbying effort against such a move, the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) placed an advertisement in the tabloid newspaper published in Washington, Politico, warning that including medical liability insurers in such legislation could lead "us into another medical malpractice crisis across the country."

The PCI ad said such repeal "could have major negative repercussions for consumers. Changing the system could reignite a medical malpractice crisis, leading to reduced insurer competition, fewer options for medical practitioners and increased costs for patients." it said.

It added that if the exemption provided medical liability insurers is repealed, medical joint underwriting associations "could disappear if not allowed to access historical data."

This could "begin to erode insurance marketplaces, particularly for the medical communities with JUAs [Joint Underwriting Authorities] in Florida, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin."

"We ask Congress not to reignite an old medical malpractice crisis–and instead preserve what has served consumers well for over 60 years," PCI wrote.