H.R. 1304 will drive the costs of medical care higher. How much higher? It depends on whom you ask. A June 1999 study by Charles River Associates estimates that H.R. 1304 would result in an increase in doctor fees of up to 25%.

Testifying against H.R. 1304 last year before the House Judiciary Committee, Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein stated: "Our investigations reveal that when health care professionals jointly negotiate with health insurers, without regard to antitrust laws, they typically seek to significantly increase their fees, sometimes by as much as 20% - 40%. "

The FTC recently broke up a cartel of surgeons in Austin, Texas, which used a boycott of a Blue Cross plan to gain a 30% increase in fees. The result, according to the FTC, was to increase costs to consumers for surgical services by $1,000,000.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) took a conservative line, estimating an increase in payments to physicians of only 15%. This increase in costs will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums, lower wages, reductions in non-health fringe benefits, and higher out-of-pocket health care costs, according to CBO.

H.R. 1304 would hit consumers in another way, by giving physicians the means to force insurers to eliminate contractual provisions that limit "balance billing." These provisos require doctors to accept the fee they've negotiated with insurers as full payment for their services. It prohibits doctors from accepting a payment from an insurance company and then slapping their patient with an additional bill for the same service. This protection is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to consumers. It is a major means by which insurance companies protect their subscribers from price gouging. If Congress grants physicians an exemption from federal antitrust law and allows physicians to collectively bargain, these critical contractual protections for consumers will be an early target of organized medicine.