NFIB: U.S. House Passes Legislation to Improve "Health" of Small Business

Release Date: 5/13/2004

Today, the U.S. House of Representatives completed work on and passed legislation that provides small business with a set of tools to address the skyrocketing costs of health care. "Small-business owners succeed when they have a business climate that allows them to use their resources to make investments and create jobs for our economy," said NFIB Senior Vice President Dan Danner. "The House-passed legislative package takes significant steps to improve the access to and affordability of health care, an issue that our 600,000 members believe is one of the most critical barriers to small-business success." In addition to passing legislation allowing small businesses to band together to buy insurance for their employees through enactment of Small-Business Health Plans, the House passed legislation to improve the flexibility of Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs), and a bill to reduce frivolous medical lawsuits that impact small businesses and their employees. The legislation passed includes: Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) (H.R. 4279) - This legislation allows employees to rollover $500 of their unused FSA funds into an FSA or a Health Savings Account (HSA). According to a recent NFIB Member Ballot, 80 percent of NFIB members believe that individuals who contribute to tax free savings accounts for health care should be allowed to carry over any unused portion. The Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-Cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2004 (H.R. 4280) - The legislation makes two vital reforms to our current medical liability system: it caps non-economic damages at $250,000, and abolishes joint and several liability, ensuring that parties in a lawsuit will only be liable for damages in direct proportion to their percentage of responsibility. This bill will help end the practice of defensive medicine by greatly reducing the threat of frivolous lawsuits and could significantly lower premiums for small business. The Small Business Health Fairness Act of 2004 (H.R. 4281) - The NFIB's 600,000 small-business members have repeatedly cited the cost and availability of health-care coverage as their No. 1 problem. Small-Business Health Plans will help reduce the number of uninsured Americans by allowing small businesses the same accessibility, affordability, and choice in the health-care marketplace that big businesses now experience. Banding together across state lines under bona fide trade or professional associations, small-business owners and their employees will benefit from the same economies of scale, purchasing clout, and administrative efficiencies that their big business counterparts currently enjoy. "While NFIB members applaud passage of all of these legislative initiatives, the symbolic importance of passing Small-Business Health Plans cannot be understated. More than 25 million of the uninsured are small-business owners, employees or dependents of small businesses with less than 100 employees, and they are the largest segment of the uninsured. The House has passed this legislation seven times and the President is anxious to sign it into law. But the Senate still has not moved forward with action on the Small Business Health Fairness Act (S.545). America's small-business owners build our homes, grow our food and fix our cars, but they can't, by themselves, fix our health-care crisis. It is time for the Senate to step up to the plate and pass S. 545."