NFIB

NFIB has joined AARP, the Service Employees International Union and the Business Roundtable, a group of CEOs of leading American companies, as one of only four members of the Divided We Fail coalition.

The coalition's announcement was made during a press conference held at NFIB's Washington office with the principles of the other three organizations, including Bill Novelli from AARP, John Castellani from the Business Roundtable and Andy Stern from the SEIU.

Representing more than 53 million people, this coalition seeks to engage the American public, elected officials and the business community to find broad-based, bipartisan solutions to address what has become a national crisis for America's job creators--health care and its impact on our nation's long-term economic competitiveness.

"We believe this coalition can effectively spur our nation's policymakers and political leaders to take swift bipartisan action," said Todd Stottlemyer, NFIB's president and CEO. "Joining this coalition is one more way NFIB is leveraging every resource in its fight to make affordable, quality health care available to all members and their employees."

Small-business owners, their employees and dependents make up the largest segment of the uninsured population, and NFIB has been working tirelessly on their behalf for many years on this issue.

"This is a great opportunity for us to educate our coalition partners as well as policymakers on the unique challenges that small businesses face in obtaining affordable health care for themselves and their employees," Stottlemyer said. "We simply can't say healthcare reform is our top priority and be content with the stalemate over small-business health-care reform. We aren’t serving our members if we don't explore all of our opportunities to provide meaningful solutions for their most pressing issues. While we don't expect to agree with our partners on every detail, we do agree the time has come to address our nation’s healthcare crisis in a real and lasting way."

NFIB will continue to advocate at the state and federal level on health care to increase the number of affordable health-care options for small business. For more information about Divided We Fail, visit www.dividedwefail.org. For more information about NFIB's work on health-care issues, visit www.NFIB.com/healthcare.