McCarran–Ferguson Act and Domestic Health Insurance

Posted on November 9, 2020 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

The McCarran–Ferguson Act

By Howard Green MD

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The McCarran–Ferguson Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1011-1015, is a United States federal law that exempts the business of insurance from most federal regulation, including federal antitrust laws to a limited extent.
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The McCarran–Ferguson Act was passed by the 79th Congress in 1945 after the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association that the federal government could regulate insurance companies under the authority of the Commerce Clause in the U.S. Constitution and that the federal antitrust laws applied to the insurance industry.
-United States Federal Law
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Health Insurance industry redistributing unlimited cash from patient premiums into the Georgia US Senate run off election to prevent a Democrat Senate Majority from removing the health insurance exemption to Federal antitrust, monopoly, price fixing and collusion McCarran Ferguson laws.

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Bitching about Dental Insurance

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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Both Hippocratic and Patriotic

By D. Kellus Pruitt DDS

For the benefit of our trusting patients, let’s start openly discussing the unethical practices of dental insurance companies’ right here. Marketplace conversation about deceit in healthcare is not only the Hippocratic thing to do, but once the awkwardness wears off, it’s really, really fun sport. We simply must lower the cost of dental care in the nation, and I say we start with dental insurance executives’ salaries and bonuses. Are you with me; Doctor? And let’s not forget all the non-productive busywork insurance companies never reimburse us for.

Are you Fed Up?

Are you fed up with successfully doing intricate handwork to exacting tolerances in mouths of anxious patients and then having to fight to get the patients’ insurance company to pay what they rightfully owe THEIR CLIENT? Are you tired of the way anonymous and unaccountable insurance employees treat you and your staff when their company’s contractual relationship is not with anyone in your office?

In my opinion, Delta Dental, United Concordia, UnitedHealth, BCBSTX and most other secretive dental insurance companies have been cheating Americans for decades under the cover of the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 – which protects them from prosecution by the FTC and cries out to be repealed (tell your Congressperson).

The Age of Transparency

Even in the age of transparency, old habits die hard, especially when there is a profit and campaign funds involved. Dental “insurance” has always harbored fraudulent business activities and has never made sense as a wise purchase – even if one doesn’t brush their teeth. It’s a business built on complicated rules, client deceit and intrusion into their relationship with their dentist.

Dental insurance crime as policy has long avoided market correction because up until now, dentists had no control over the media (and dentistry is boring). Not unexpectedly, when business entities are shielded from accountability in an otherwise free market, it is always the clueless consumer who wastes money on lousy dental insurance policies.

IMHO

In my opinion, employers should be offering their employees the choice of cash or dental insurance. Then let Adam Smith’s invisible hand of competition spank the butts of the greedy and deceitful.

Dentists

Dentists, if you were given the opportunity to effectively voice your opinion directly to employers who carelessly purchase bad dental plans they know nothing about according to the appearance of an ad, what would you say? So why aren’t you saying it right here, right now? If not now, when, Doc?

Assessment

If you don’t make your complaints known, do you think MBA benevolence will eventually improve the dental insurance industry in the nation? I say we do what feels natural and bitch. Let’s live on the wild side and take our chances on someone calling us “unprofessional.” We owe it to our patients to promote honesty in our community. Otherwise, how can your silence possibly help your patients?

Conclusion

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A New Survey on Dental Insurance

Posted on March 22, 2010 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

Come on out Kim E. Volk – CEO of Delta Dental

By Darrell K. Pruitt; DDS

Today, Julie Frey posted “Dentist & Dental Insurance: No Love Lost” on Jim Du Molin’s Blog.

http://www.thewealthydentist.com/blog/1186/dentist-dental-insurance/

Frey hosts dentists’ frank criticism of dental insurance – their harsh sentiments backed up with fresh results from yet another of the blog’s timely studies that nobody else can compete with. Frey writes “Half of dentists have mostly or completely stopped accepting dental insurances, according to this survey.”  One dentist captured the mood of the dentists with the statement, “Do the math … somebody is making hell of a lot of money on these plans, and it is not the dentist!” I smelled blood and posted the following comment.

Bloody Sunday

Anonymous members of the obscure National Association of Dental Plans (NADP) are losing the fat, collective thumb they once oppressed us with – even using our own ADA News to present their non-negotiable terms. Apart from common sense appearing in the marketplace about the same time as transparency, multiple other interconnected factors are causing dental insurance companies to lose business. The bad economy, corporate greed and pride are a few of their more serious handicaps that come to mind. Wasteful, deceptive insurance practices have aggravated my patients and me for decades before modern networked recourse became available on the Internet through progressive Websites like Jim Du Molin’s Blog. I’ll go out on a limb and say it is not unprofessional for us to enjoy protecting those we serve by showing no mercy to unfair stakeholders like the NADP.

There. I said it. In fact, as US citizens and taxpayers I think blowing the whistle on unneeded expense and danger in the nation’s healthcare delivery is the least we can do for meaningful healthcare reform. I say do your part. Make an insurance CEO like Delta Dental Plans Association’s Kim E. Volk feel discomfort on the Internet. Do you know that Kim E. Volk is the only person who has ever refused to accept me as a friend on Facebook?

http://www.jbpub.com/catalog/9780763733421/

Assessment 

We really don’t want to allow Delta Dental, UnitedHealthcare, United Concordia and others to dictate fees for non-covered dental services, do we? I also don’t think they deserve continued protection from FTC anti-trust litigation. I say we punish the NADP hard every chance we get until the repeal of the McCarran-Ferguson Act and finally make such in-your-face collusion illegal for crying out loud.

Conclusion

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Speaker: If you need a moderator or speaker for an upcoming event, Dr. David E. Marcinko; MBA – Publisher-in-Chief of the Medical Executive-Post – is available for seminar or speaking engagements. Contact: MarcinkoAdvisors@msn.com

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