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Letters to the Editor
Support Small Business Health Plans
Thank you for Matthew French’s article in the Aug. 22 Business Journal, “House passes affordable health insurance legislation.”
Not surprisingly, big insurance said the Small Business Health Fairness Act would end up hurting small business. They have a virtual monopoly and some cushy turf to protect.
But here is what they won’t tell you.
In a national survey, 89% of respondents favor passage of Small Business Health Plans (Public Opinion Strategies, 2005).
Research from the Federation of American Hospitals reinforces that support: 93% of Americans back Small Business Health Plans as a way to provide affordable health insurance to millions of uninsured workers and their families.
Big insurance also asserts that Small Business Health Plans would “cherry-pick” healthy employees. But today’s market is already, in effect, cherry-picked because of a lack of competition and unfair pricing.
Small businesses would like the opportunity to join together in associations across state lines, like big business and unions can, to reduce administrative burdens and allow competition into the market rather than choose who gets coverage and who doesn’t.
South Carolina’s director of the Department of Insurance alarmingly said the proposed legislation “will not be required to have solvency plans, and they will not have to comply with state consumer protection laws or benefits mandates.”
That is misleading. For those who have read the U.S. Senate bill, extensive patient protections, consumer protections and oversight requirements are included, and they are tougher than those now required by current corporate plans and even some states.
Federal legislation, as written, would protect consumers against fraudulent plans by giving oversight authority to the U.S. Department of Labor, which regulates 275,000 health plans covering 72 million lives.
Small-business owners would like access to every car on the lot, not just the highest-priced model that states are mandating and big insurance is pricing.
I encourage readers to visit www.AHPsNOW.com for information and a list of the broad coalition supporting Small Business Health Plans. It sure sounds better than the doom-and-gloom rhetoric from opponents.
Michael Fields
NFIB/South Carolina State Director
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