With the drive to reform health care stuck in neutral, the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to consider a key element of its legislation later this week: the repeal of an anti-trust exemption for health and medical malpractice insurers.

Reps. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) and Betsy Markey (D-Colo.) have filed a bill that would end what the pair say is special treatment for the insurance industry “that allows them to fix prices, collude with each other and set their own markets without fear of being investigated,” according to a statement.

Meanwhile, the Property-Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) is calling the bill “an attack” that “misses the mark.”

Media reports indicate that the House could review the measure later this week. The proposed legislation has not been reviewed by the Congressional Budget Office to date.

While Perriello voted in favor of the House’s health reform bill last year; Markey voted in opposition. But the pair said “removing this exemption has been a common priority.”

The exemption comes under the 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act, which deferred insurance regulation to state anti-trust oversight.

Under the bill filed by Perriello and Markey, health insurers would lose protection from liability from price fixing, dividing up market territories or bid-rigging. The pair said that in the last 14 years, there have been 400 mergers of health care insurers resulting in 95% of “highly concentrated” health insurance markets, leaving consumers with little or no choice. 

“It’s time for Washington to decide whether we stand with patients or profiteering, whether we believe in market competition or collusion between politicians and insurance monopolies,” Perriello said in a statement. “It’s time to end the monopoly protections that Washington has protected for decades as prices skyrocketed. It’s time for a simple, clean bill – no carve-outs or special deals – that forces insurance companies to compete. It’s time to put patients and cost relief first.”

Markey said that she has heard from “tens of thousands” of Colorado residents, and the message is clear: “The current health care system is crushing our families and businesses.

“Support for removing this unfair exemption cuts across party lines, and is a major piece of common ground that I’ve been working toward in our country’s health care debate. This is about bringing sorely-needed competition back into an industry that has for too long wielded monopoly control over hard-working American families,” she said.

A similar measure to that outlined in the Perriello-Markey bill passed the House Judiciary Committee last year with bi-partisan support, the congressmen noted.

Ben McKay, senior vice president of PCI, denounced the proposed bill, indicating that, “enforcement of insurance is conducted at the state level because insurance is regulated at the state level.

“This bill will add another layer of duplicative oversight that in the end will cost consumers,” he said.