ICA-Supported Legislation Becomes Public Law 116-327

January 31, 2021 (Falls Church, VA) In the truest sense of the phrase, ‘It takes a village’, the decades long efforts of the International Chiropractors Association (ICA) and others to repeal the McCarran-Ferguson antitrust exemption for health insurance companies has come to fruition.  The ICA appreciates the efforts across the health professions, especially those of the American Dental Association (ADA) and its members whose 2020 efforts provided the tipping point in Congress to see HR 1418 passed in September and its companion bill S. 350 passed in December 2020.  The bill was signed into law on January 13, 2021. 

In a 2012 report to the chiropractic community, the ICA provided, “the repeal of the McCarran-Ferguson Act, passed in 1946 giving the “business of insurance” an exemption from federal anti-trust laws, needs to be aggressively pursued and will be one of ICA’s top federal policy priorities in 2012 and beyond.”

Dr. Stephen Welsh, ICA’s Interim Chairman of the Board stated, “The ICA has worked steadily on the repeal the protections to the health insurance industry of the McCarran-Ferguson Act provisions.  There have been many legislative efforts over the years to repeal the Act in whole or in part. We are pleased that Congress working in a non-partisan manner passed the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act into law at the end of the 116^th Congressional Session.”

In 2009, Senator Charles Schumer, now the Senate Majority leader stated, “The health insurance’s antitrust exemption is one of the worst accidents of American history. It deserves a lot of the blame for the huge rise in premiums that has made health insurance so unaffordable. It is time to end this special status and bring true competition to the health insurance industry,”

The ICA continues its focus on promoting and protecting chiropractic by advocating to remove barriers to access to chiropractic world- wide, the fair compensation of chiropractors in health insurance and federal programs, and the advocating for patients to retain their freedom to select the health care provider of their choosing. 

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