The insurance industry has an antitrust exemption?

I am fully aware of the irony of embedding an MSNBC video in this post after publishing a post in which I advised you to ignore Fox "News." The difference between the two networks is that MSNBC is, unlike Fox, right more often than not.

I was under the impression that The Morning Meeting was less partisan and more news-oriented than other MSNBC programs like Countdown and The Rachel Maddow Show. That impression evaporated this morning. Ratigan and his guest Eliot Spitzer go after the health insurance companies and argue convincingly that their antitrust exemption ought to be eliminated. (That exemption would, of course, help explain why insurance costs have been skyrocketing.) You can read more about the antitrust exemption here.

The partisan tone of the segment is alarming, given that it appeared in a time slot that was devoted to news before The Morning Meeting premiered some months ago. But the content of the segment is, it seems to me, sound. (Seriously: allowing insurance companies to become monopolies can only make insurance more expensive for their customers. Markets governed by antitrust exemptions are not free and do not function properly.) It is comforting to know that someone on cable is countering Fox "News," the propaganda arm of the Republican Party.

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