•Yet, both organizations determined that this legislation should be defeated.

The ABA Antitrust Section report terms H.R. 1304 as "both unwise and unnecessary."

•"The Act would protect price fixing, group boycotts, and market or customer allocations, which occur through negotiations with health plans, and which otherwise could be deemed illegal per se under established antitrust principles."

•"This broad protection from antitrust law . . . may result in higher prices and diminished consumer choices without improving quality or achieving other important goals in the delivery of health care . . . ."

The Consumer Federation of America, in a letter to members of the House Judiciary Committee, said "this bill would likely do more harm than good for consumers."  CFA pointed at how H.R. 1304 would take consumers "from the frying pan into the fire:"

•"[I]ncreased health care costs for consumers, employers and federal and state health care programs;

•"[R]eductions in benefits to private plan enrollees and government plan beneficiaries;

•"[D]ecreased access to health insurance coverage and to federal and state health programs, such s Medicare and Medicaid, and

•"[O]veruse of some health care services and a decline in the coordination of patient care."

H.R. 1304 would unleash cartels to price-fix like the trusts of just over a century ago, which led to adoption of our antitrust laws.

•The CFA says, "H.R. 1304 would authorize the creation of health care cartels, not unions."  The legislation would "grant providers a blanket [antitrust] exemption in negotiating with health plans that covers not only health care quality issues, but also price."

•"This strips consumers of protection from price-fixing cartels without substituting any enforcement authority [e.g., the Federal Trade Commission] that can intervene on behalf of consumers who are victimized by unfair price increases or reduced access to health care."

•Further, the ABA report says, "In fact, all competition could be eliminated because the providers could form a single ‘bargaining unit' without fear of antitrust challenge."

Nonphysician providers, to whom the legislation would extend the same antitrust exemption, fear the market power their stronger competitors would wield.

•CFA says, "They are understandably concerned that some physicians will use their immunity to collectively demand terms from health plans that would disadvantage competing providers.  This is not just a ‘turf war' among providers that has no effect on consumers.  Nurse midwives, nurse anesthetists and nurse practitioners often provide care of high quality to patients in underserved areas that have been abandoned by physicians."

Before embarking on this anticompetitive path, Congress should carefully consider the harmful impact H.R. 1304 will have on consumers, patients, employees and employers.  Listen to the experts and reject this ill-conceived bill.