Health Care and Health-Care Insurance
Issue Overview: The single most important issue to NFIB/Wyoming members is the cost of health care and health-care insurance. More and more members are finding the rapidly increasing cost of insurance is forcing them to make choices between offering coverage for their employees, changing coverage or even dropping the insurance as unaffordable.
Legislative committees are looking at various approaches and ideas in an effort to slow the increases in cost, if not reverse them. Tort reform, avoiding mandated coverage and use of Small-Business Health-Care plans are just a few.
On the other side of the issue is continuing talk of a proposal to require all employers to offer health insurance to their employees.
NFIB Position: Over 63 percent of our membership supports using association health care plans, 97 percent support amending the Wyoming constitution to limit non-economic damages and 81 percent support tort reform in general.
What to Say/Do: Write, call or talk with your local State Representative and Senator about health-care costs and the rising cost of health insurance. Impress upon them how it is affecting your business and your ability to provide coverage for yourself and your employees. You can write them or call them at home during the 2007 interim and you can testify at interim committee meetings that deal with the issue.
Issue Status: A bill that would have mandated coverage for cancer clinical trials was defeated by the Senate Corporations Committee in January.
