Antitrust Relief

OB/GYN News, Dec 15, 1999 by Joyce Frieden, Farah Kostreski

Physicians will have to wait until next year-at least-for antitrust reforms that allow them to unionize. Although an antitrust relief bill sponsored by Rep. Tom Campbell (R-Calif.) has garnered 172 cosponsors and the backing of more than half of the members of the House Judiciary Committee, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-III.) recently asked the committee to delay acting on the measure.

The bill, a pet project of the American Medical Association, may have fallen prey to politics; the speaker reportedly is upset with AMA lobbyists who have pushed hard for HMO patient rights legislation.