In 2010, the PPACA was signed into law.[1]  The PPACA was enacted with the goals of increasing the quality and affordability of health insurance, lowering the uninsured rate by expanding public and private insurance coverage, and reducing the costs of healthcare for individuals and the government.[2]  The PPACA marks the first federal law to comprehensively regulate the business of insurance since the enactment of the McCarran-Ferguson Act in 1945.[3]

The first prong of the McCarran-Ferguson Act—whether the federal statute at issue does not specifically relate to the business of insurance—makes it clear that the PPACA does not interfere with the McCarran-Ferguson Act—the PPACA specifically relates to the business of insurance.[4]  Prior case law supports the above conclusion.[5]

The PPACA suggests, at a minimum, that the federal government is now willing to comprehensively regulate the business of insurance.  As such, the McCarran-Ferguson Act and the states’ ability to regulate the insurance industry without federal intervention well may be on their way to becoming relics of the past.  Of course, this is an extreme end of the spectrum of possibilities.  The PPACA may very well be a one-time comprehensive regulation of the business of insurance by the federal government.  Only time will tell.

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