NOYB wrote:


No, we need Association Health Plans. They were passed in the House
last
year...but they've been sitting in a Senate Subcommittee for 16 months
while
the Chairman of the subcommittee figures out how to garner enough votes
to
make it filibuster-proof when it hits the Senate floor. The National
Federation of Independent Businesses is throwing the majority of its
political clout (rated the #2 most powerful lobbying group) behind their
passage.


The majority of working Americans who have no health insurance work for
sipstick little companies who aren't going to buy into this any more
than they buy into anything else to help their employees.

They will if you create a large enough incentive (via a tax break) for them
to contribute to employees' health insurance

I would not object to a tax break with the REQUIREMENT that small
businesses provide as a result at least a standardized plan for all
employees. No exclusions...everyone has at least decent coverage.




You know of course that local unions are major proponents of the concept
of associated health plans and in fact sponsor many. Nice to see a smal
business association buy into the concept of collective bargaining, if
not for their employees.

As you stated, unions are already able to band together in association
health plans. Small businesses aren't.

They should be allowed.


It's not that we won't buy into the
concept...it's that we are not allowed to because insurance companies
lobbied long ago to keep all insurance regulation under the control of each
state's insurance commission, rather than under the control of the Federal
government (look up the McCarron-Ferguson Act). Congress has the
responsibility to regulate interstate commerce. If I'm buying insurance
from a company in Massachusetts, then shouldn't Congress regulate such a
transaction.


As someone who spent three years as a consultant to a multi-state
insurance company and who had to write all sorts of copy differences to
accomodate vagaries of state law, I couldn't agree more. But we need a
high federal regulatory standard, not the standard some ******** state
might like to impose.





But association health plans are NOT the answer to the enormous problem
we have.


Sure they are. It creates competition on the pricing of health care
premiums by removing the huge competitive advantage currently held by the
insurance companies. It levels the playing field, and allows small
businesses to buy a decent plan like the one *you* are covered by. (I don't
even have a plan like that available to me *at any price*.) It also
prevents insurance companies from ignoring the expensive markets to do
business in and cherry-pick the most profitable markets.

It will help, that is all.




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