News from the
Committee on Education and the Workforce
John Boehner, Chairman

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 12, 2003

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. House Committee on Education & the Workforce today moved one step closer to significantly expanding access to health coverage for families across the country by approving bipartisan Association Health Plan legislation. The Small Business Health Fairness Act (H.R. 660) creates AHPs, which allow small businesses to band together through associations and purchase quality health care for workers and their families at a lower cost. The bill, which has received significant bipartisan support in the House and boasts more than 150 cosponsors, was approved by a vote of 26-21.

“The best patient protection is access to affordable health benefit options. Yet 41 million Americans currently have no coverage at all,” said Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX), chairman of the Employer-Employee Relations subcommittee and primary sponsor of the legislation. “The Small Business Health Fairness Act can reduce the high cost of health insurance for small businesses and the self employed.”

“Small companies deserve the opportunity to obtain high quality health insurance that is competitively priced,” continued Johnson. “This is a big victory for the 8.5 million people who moved one step closer to joining the ranks of the insured.”

According to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau in September 2002, the number of Americans without health insurance has increased to more than 41 million Americans. Many of the newly uninsured are small business employees whose employers cannot afford to offer health plans to their workers. With health insurance costs expected to rise significantly again in 2003, the risk of more American families losing their health insurance remains a critical issue that the Committee is addressing with this bipartisan AHP bill.

“I have long felt that the most pressing crisis we face in health care today is the number of uninsured Americans, which currently stands at more than 41 million. And the problem is not going away,” said Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), chairman of the Education & the Workforce Committee. “With health care costs continuing to rise sharply across the country, more and more employers and workers are sharing the burden of increased premiums. Health care costs rose by 11 percent in 2002, and surveys project another increase of 13 percent this year. As costs escalate, the ranks of the uninsured will increase as well.”

According to the Employee Benefits Research Institute, over 60 percent of the 41 million plus uninsured Americans either work in a small business or are dependent on a small business worker. It is clear that the crisis of uninsured Americans is directly related to the increasing difficulty small business face as they seek to provide affordable health coverage for their employees. Declining coverage in the employer-based health insurance market accounts for the increase in the number of uninsured Americans - and significantly, the reduction in employer-sponsored coverage comes almost totally from a decrease in the number of individuals covered by small employers.

The bipartisan bill approved today would increase small businesses’ bargaining power with health care providers, give them freedom from costly state-mandated benefit packages, and lower their overhead costs by as much as 30 percent - benefits that many large corporations like GM and UPS and many unions already enjoy because of their larger economies of scale. The Small Business Health Fairness Act was introduced by Johnson, Rep. Ernie Fletcher (R-KY), Boehner, Rep. Cal Dooley (D-CA), and Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) on February 11, 2003.

“Importantly, the bill addresses both the access and cost issues at the heart of the health care reform debate, giving uninsured working families new hope for a solution that can give them access to quality health care. AHPs will expand access for the people for whom quality health care is currently out of reach: uninsured working families,” said Boehner.

President Bush and the Department of Labor support the legislation. The bill currently has more than 150 cosponsors, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Small Business Committee Chairman Don Manzullo (R-IL), and Reps. Ken Lucas (D-KY), Charles Gonzalez (D-TX), Jim DeMint (R-SC), Joe Wilson (R-SC), Todd Platts (R-PA), Tom Cole (R-OK), John Carter (R-TX), Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).

A broad and diverse coalition of more than 130 groups have endorsed the bill, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the Associated Builders and Contractors, The Latino Coalition, National Black Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Women Business Owners, and the National Restaurant Association.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in a letter dated June 10 addressed to Chairman Boehner, noted that, “Small business is the backbone of our nation and has driven much of the economic boom of the last decade and century. If small employers continue to face annual premium increases of 20 to30 percent, they will be unable to remain competitive and contribute to the growth of the U.S. economy. H.R. 660 is essential to improving access to health care coverage and making it more affordable for small business employees and their families.”

The National Federation of Independent Business, representing 600,000 members from the small business corps, expressed strong support for the legislation as well, writing on June 9 that, “AHPs will help reduce the number of uninsured Americans by allowing small businesses the same accessibility, affordability, and choice in the health care marketplace that big businesses now experience. Banding together across state lines under bona fide trade or professional associations, small business owners and their employees will benefit from the same economies of scale, purchasing clout, and administrative efficiencies that their big business counterparts currently enjoy.”

For more information about Association Health Plans and the broad coalition that supports AHPs, please visit the website http://www.ahpsnow.com/.

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