On Capitol Hill, Democrats are moving forward with an effort to strip the insurance industry’s exemption from federal antitrust laws. Democrats say the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 has granted the insurance industry a captive market with no curbs on price fixing and other anti-competitive practices. On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee voted to repeal the exemption. House leaders say the measure could be included as part of overall legislation on healthcare reform. Meanwhile, in the Senate, Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy unveiled his version of the repeal.

Sen. Patrick Leahy: “We’ll prohibit the most egregious anti-competitive conduct — price fixing, bid rigging, market allocation — in the health and medical malpractice insurance industry. There’s no place for those practices. They would be illegal if done by any other industry. And it’s incredible that criminal conduct which would land people in jail, if engaged in in other industries, is legal when health insurers do it.”

Leahy says he also plans to include the repeal measure as part of a final package on healthcare reform.