The 83^rd episode of the “Small Business Rundown” podcast features a conversation with U.S. Representative Beth Van Duyne (TX-24), who serves on both the House Committee on Ways and Means and the Committee on Small Business. Rep. Van Duyne is an original cosponsor of the CHOICE Act and has introduced the Small Business Health Options Awareness Act.

“Healthcare always seems to be one of those items that small businesses especially, are struggling with,” Rep. Van Duyne said. “They’re not massive companies. They can’t afford to have these large healthcare coverages, but they have to compete for their employees.”

CLICK HERE to listen to the full conversation. Excerpts are below:

On the CHOICE Act, Rep. Van Duyne said:

“In 2019, under the Trump Administration, there was a rule that actually expanded HRAs that allowed employees to purchase their own health insurance plans on the individual marketplace. What this does is basically allows businesses to help them pay for that. It’s a benefit that employers can give if individuals want to purchase it on their own. About 87% of small businesses report wanting to help their employees get health insurance, but they don’t want to have to offer a traditional plan. Small businesses are probably about twice as likely to utilize the choice arrangements than larger businesses. We found that about one in five small business owners report that they consider offering it if Congress had codified it into law. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

On the Small Business Health Options Awareness Act, Rep. Van Duyne said:

“We could offer all these plans, but if the small businesses don’t know that they exist, it doesn’t really do them a whole lot of good. The bottom line was to make small businesses much more aware and understand the flexibility that these programs provide, that how they can be tax advantage and how they can really help pay for their employees for individual health coverage.”

In March, NFIB released a new Legislative Health Care Plan outlining several proposals Congress should implement to lower persistently rising health care costs. The proposal is designed to protect and improve small business owners’ ability to offer health benefits to their employees.

Take action to reform the broken health insurance system.