The AHA today voiced support for the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act (H.R. 4626). Introduced yesterday by Reps. Tom Perriello (D-VA) and Betsy Markey (D-CO), the bill would repeal the antitrust exemption available to health insurers for anticompetitive conduct, including price fixing, bid rigging and market allocation. Expressing its support for the bill in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Perriello and Markey, the AHA said "the health insurance industry should be governed by the same antitrust laws and policies that apply in other sectors of our economy, including health care. Any exemptions should be narrow and carefully tailored to achieve a procompetitive purpose." In May, the AHA urged the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division to step up its enforcement against health plan mergers and other anticompetitive conduct because the increase in concentration and increasingly anticompetitive conduct was harming consumers, hospitals and other caregivers and could imperil health care reform.