10/26/2007
The Senate Finance Committee recently held a hearing to address the issue of health care for small business, a top priority for NFIB members.
NFIB Executive Vice President Dan Danner submitted testimony reminding the committee that small business represents the largest sector of the nation's uninsured. He emphasized the sense of urgency for reform, as small-business owners are scrambling to provide their employees with coverage as costs continue to skyrocket.
"NFIB in the past has fought for years to allow small businesses to pool across state lines to enable them to find more affordable coverage," Danner said in his testimony. "While we still support that goal, we want to work on legislation that will help small business afford coverage and can be enacted into law... We can no longer say that health-care reform is our No. 1 priority and be content with the legislative stalemate over small-business health-care reform."
Danner's testimony also relayed NFIB's commitment to working with Congress in finding a way to provide strong and positive reform for small business, and asked lawmakers to focus on the key areas of pooling, tax-based incentives and cost-containment measures when they considered the challenges faced by small-business owners struggling to purchase health insurance.
