VA Senate Passes Game-Changing Small Biz Healthcare Bill

Date: February 14, 2018

NFIB/VA members could soon have new, lower-cost options for healthcare.

An advancing piece of legislation (SB934), introduced by Sens. Siobhan Dunnavant and Frank Wagner, would allow nonstock corporations—such as the Virginia Chamber of Commerce and NFIB Virginia—to pool their members together to form a benefits consortium that would provide health insurance to its members. Doing so will reduce healthcare costs for members and their employees, as well as increase competition in the insurance marketplace.

“The number one issue confronting policymakers today is containing the skyrocketing cost of healthcare,” Sen. Wagner said. “By allowing small businesses and their employees to pool together to purchase health insurance, it will drive the cost of health insurance down. Quite simply, the bigger the group, the lower the cost. This is one of a series of bills designed to bend the cost curve.”

NFIB/VA State Director Nicole Riley expressed small business’ appreciation for this effort: “Small businesses in Virginia have few choices when it comes to healthcare insurance and are often forced to turn to the individual marketplace to provide coverage to their employees and themselves, which can be expensive and unreliable. Small businesses make up 99.5 percent of businesses in the Commonwealth and until now have had nowhere to turn to offer competitively priced, quality health insurance to employees. This is a huge opportunity to offer more affordable choices to a majority of employers in the Commonwealth.”

SB934 unanimously passed the Senate and will now move on to the House.

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