03/21/2005
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Jerry Pierce testifies on the importance of Small-Business Health Plans |
NFIB member Jerry Pierce urged Congress to make health care more affordable for small business in his testimony before the House Small Business Committee this month.
As owner of Orlando, Fla.-based business, Restaurant Equipment World, Pierce employs 32 employees. As a team, they are the leading e-commerce marketer of restaurant equipment with 22,000 customers across the country; they also provide for local Orlando businesses such as Sea World and Cypress Gardens, and chain restaurants such as Applebee’s and Denny’s.
But despite these huge successes, Pierce said, he also finds he has equally large problems, one of which is health care.
“Due to the current structure of the health-care industry, too many small-business owners and their employees do not have access to affordable health insurance,” Pierce said. “My own daughter does not participate in our company health-care plan because she can be included in her husband’s large corporation plan for only $40 per month. If, however, her husband lost his job, it would cost $428.51 per month to be added to our company plan.”
Despite the contributions small businesses are making to the economy, they still bear the brunt of the health-care issue.
Pierce and NFIB have a solution to this problem: Small-Business Health Plans (formerly known as AHPs).
“Small-Business Health Plans will allow small businesses to band together to negotiate better rates as a result of cost efficiencies associated with volume purchasing of health care,” Pierce said. “Fortune 500 companies and labor unions already have this ability. These plans will simply level the playing field and give small employers the same privileges as their counterparts in labor and big business.”
The House Committee on Education and Workforce passed the Small Business Health Fairness Act (H.R. 525) March 16, and now the legislation is headed to the House floor, where it is expected to pass.
A similar bill, S. 406, has been introduced in the Senate.
This type of legislation passed the House twice during the 108th Congress, but the Senate never acted.
