Price Controls. Increased Regulations. Stifling Innovation. This isn’t your father’s U.S. Chamber of Commerce

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a free market is defined as “an economic market or system in which prices are based on competition among private businesses and not controlled by a government.”   

Tom Donohue, President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce “seems” to agree with this philosophy in a recent op-ed stating, “American businesses and consumers are being buried under an avalanche of rules from a system that is increasingly opaque and unaccountable. Since 1976, we’ve added 176,000 regulations to the books. Federal agencies are churning out another 4,000 every year.”

But at a November gathering of top insurance legislators, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, on behalf of large insurance companies, was actively seeking government intervention to regulate the business of consumer legal funding.  These burdensome set of anti-free market price control regulation guidelines were designed for state legislators to use as a template in crafting legislation that would help handcuff and end the consumer legal funding industry. 

The issue for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and large insurance companies is how the consumer legal funding business is impacting the way large insurance companies prefer to deal with automobile and on-the-job injury claims.  The typical strategy for a large insurance company is to utilize long delay tactics against a claim, dragging settlements on as long as possible, in hopes the claimant becomes desperate enough to settle for pennies to what is actually owed.  

On the other hand, consumer legal funding is a service that offers a claimant a counter to the large insurance companies’ delay tactics.  With consumer legal funding, a claimant has the opportunity to acquire non-recourse funding to help pay for essential items such as food, rent or other daily necessities.  This non-recourse funding can help sustain the needs of a claimant’s everyday expenses while allowing them to pursue a full and fair settlement regarding their injury claim.

The bad news is the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce suspiciously talks about free markets and de-regulation policy when in the public eye, but is actively seeking anti-free market price control regulations that would endanger businesses such as consumer legal funding behind the scenes.

The good news, however, is that the group of legislators at the November meeting decided to decline action on the U.S. Chamber’s anti-free market legislative proposals.  A win for all small businesses who are increasingly faced with competing industries running to the government to try and impose burdensome anti-free market regulations to help solve their problems.  

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce needs to stop pushing for anti-free market, government intervention type regulations to protect a select few businesses, and instead start pushing for free market policies that benefit ALL businesses.    

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