A resolution to restore patient protection laws

A resolution

to restore patient protection laws; urging certain federal agencies to repeal waivers of

antitrust, anti-fee-splitting, and anti-self-referral laws; urging an amendment to federal

law to require that clinics and hospitals have freedom to contract or not contract for

payment contingent on the volume of orders for care.

WHEREAS, Federal Trade Commission waivers of antitrust laws have legalized the creation

of government-protected corporate cartels and mergers of mini-accountable care organization

provider insurance corporations in violation of antitrust law; and

WHEREAS, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services waivers of anti-fee-splitting and

anti-self-referral laws have legalized shifting cartel underwriting financial risk and profit-driven

gatekeeping functions onto the providers of these services; and

WHEREAS, cost controls and profits of megapayers, consisting of managed care

organizations, insurance companies, and government agencies, require provider accountable care

organization corporations and their bedside providers to assume risk for the cost of servicing the

clienteles of these megapayers; and

WHEREAS, waivers legalizing collusive payer behavior are how patients can lose the

protection of antitrust, anti-fee-splitting, and anti-self-referral laws, and the exclusive professional

loyalty of their bedside physicians paid bonus rewards to ration care in the role of corporate

gatekeepers; and

WHEREAS, in violation of antitrust laws, mergers are formed for the purpose of cartel

collusion in fixing capitation fee rate bids at auctions of megapayer populations for servicing by

mini-provider corporations; and

WHEREAS, in violation of anti-fee-splitting and anti-self-referral laws, provider corporations

can profiteer through collusion in referrals and splitting capitation fee profits from rationing care

among provider insurance corporations and megapayers; and

WHEREAS, profiteering through denials of care and delays in providing care is how

professionals and professional organizations can lose their claims to patient and public loyalty and

is how the integrity of America's health care system is endangered, when laws create a double legal

standard for physician behavior through legalizing accountable care organization split fee payments

contingent on volume of referrals behavior, which are illegal bribes under state medical practice

statutes and federal statutes; and

WHEREAS, multiple cost control experiments using pay contingent on volume of care

referrals have failed to significantly control costs or improve quality; and

WHEREAS, federal waivers legalize violations of antitrust, anti-fee-splitting, and

anti-self-referral laws; NOW, THEREFORE,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Legislature of the State of Minnesota that it urges the President

of the United States to direct the Federal Trade Commission to repeal waivers of antitrust laws and

to direct the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to repeal waivers of anti-fee-splitting and

anti-self-referral laws, and it further urges the Congress of the United States to amend the Medicare

Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 to require that clinics and hospitals have freedom

to contract or not contract for payments contingent on the volume of orders for care.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Secretary of State of the State of Minnesota is directed

to prepare copies of this memorial and transmit them to the President of the United States, the

President and the Secretary of the United States Senate, the Speaker and the Clerk of the United

States House of Representatives, the chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor,

and Pensions, the chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Minnesota's Senators

and Representatives in Congress, and the appropriate secretaries in the federal executive branch.