March 1, 2000

Dear Representative:

The Antitrust Coalition for Consumer Choice in Health Care ("ACCCHC"), a broad coalition of employers, health plans, insurers, health care professionals and others involved in the purchase, administration and delivery of health care services, urges you to oppose H.R. 1304, the "Quality Health-Care Coalition Act of 1999."

This bill will permit physicians and pharmacists to form cartels and engage in price-fixing, boycotts and market allocation agreements that will force patients, Medicare beneficiaries, Medicaid recipients, federal workers, and active and retired military personnel, among others, to pay more for health care.

• This legislation is opposed by the Federal Trade Commission, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, the Consumer Federation of America, the American Bar Association Antitrust Section, the American Antitrust Institute, and others who understand the risks to consumers from unregulated cartels.
• H.R. 1304 would increase health care costs. According to a Charles River Associates study, if this or similar legislation were enacted, total personal health care spending would increase up to $95 billion annually.
• The bill would permit such cartels to negotiate unfair and exclusionary agreements with health plans that could put nonphysician providers, in particular, at an unfair competitive disadvantage.
• H.R. 1304 would expose consumers to price-fixing cartels without any protections from regulatory authorities that could intervene on behalf of consumers who would be victimized by unfair price increases or reduced access to health care.

ACCCHC urges your opposition to H.R. 1304 because this dangerous legislation will increase the cost of health care, put non-physician health care professionals at an unfair competitive disadvantage, and permit the creation of totally unregulated physician cartels that can engage in price-fixing, boycotts and market allocation agreements at the expense of consumers.

Sincerely,

ACCC-HC Members Signing Letter

http://www.healthantitrust.org