Increase Access to Affordable Health Insurance
Skyrocketing health-insurance premiums continue to top the list of problems facing small-business owners. Many small-business owners have suffered through premium increases -- as high as 50 percent -- over the last several years. As a result, many businesses are forced either to shift the cost of health care to the employee or drop health-care coverage altogether. More than one-half of all uninsured adults either work for or own small businesses. In Pennsylvania, employers pay more than $10 billion in premiums every year.
New taxes and more regulations will not reduce health-care costs, lower premiums or decrease the uninsured. Real reform must increase competition among carriers and address the root causes associated with rising insurance premiums, including administrative inefficiencies, the lack of competition, the lack of bargaining power, the cost of litigation and government imposed mandates. NFIB supports cost-effective means to ensure the small-business community is able to purchase quality health care in the private marketplace. NFIB members support consumer-driven, market-based efforts to lower the cost and increase the accessibility of health insurance.
NFIB members support:
- Legislation to allow pooling to enable businesses to increase buying-power and decrease administrative costs;
- Basic, reduced-mandate health plans to enable the uninsured an entry-point into the market;
- Tax incentives to encourage fairness for all health insurance consumers;
- Requiring proposed mandates be evaluated by the Pennsylvania Healthcare Cost Containment Council; and
- Legislation to make health-care costs more transparent.
