A bipartisan group of Pennsylvania state lawmakers are championing legislation enabling small-business association healthcare plans to offer workers affordable coverage.
Such plans facilitate lower costs by allowing business and industry organizations to pool their members and negotiate insurance prices. The measure’s author, Representative Valerie Gaydos (R-Moon Township), was among numerous sponsors who told The Pennsylvania Daily Star they experienced firsthand how governmental burdens have made it harder for companies to provide their members with inexpensive medical coverage. Gaydos said this is particularly true since the Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed by President Barack Obama in 2010, heavily restricted association plans.
As an owner of a financial publishing company, she saw her business’s health insurance rate rise 18 percent rise in the first year of the ACA’s implementation. Rises nearly as large followed in subsequent years.
“There was nothing affordable about the Affordable Healthcare Act, she said. “Certainly not for small business…. [It] was not only punitive to small business but it’s basically discriminatory.”
About 30 other states have adopted statutes to work around the ACA and permit small businesses to make group health-insurance purchases. Gaydos averred that getting companies that are similarly sized and similarly focused will advance the personalization of medical coverage, something she believes has taken on too much of a one-size-fits-all model due to overregulation.
“We can personalize everything in our lives but yet small businesses can’t personalize [health insurance] by saying [for example], look, we’re life-sciences companies — we’re of like kind, like mind, like risk,” she said.
The legislation has garnered strong support from free-market organizations like the National Federation of Independent Business, the average member company of which employs about 10 workers. The grassroots group Americans for Prosperity also enthusiastically backs the idea and has observed most citizens agree; last month, AFP released a poll showing 67 percent of Pennsylvanians support this kind of reform.
“We strongly endorse this bill because it would give Pennsylvania families more affordable, personalized healthcare options,” Americans for Prosperity-Pennsylvania state director Ashley Klingensmith told The Daily Star. “Removing barriers so that individuals and small businesses can band together to buy coverage at group rates is a commonsense answer to the high cost of health insurance in the Keystone State. We applaud Representative Gaydos for her vision and leadership on this important issue.”
Another cosponsor, Representative Joe Ciresi (D-Royersford) (pictured above), drew upon his experience in the entertainment industry — he ran sales and promotions for Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center — to stress the importance of the legislation for small businesses.
“In Philadelphia, a lot of the arts organizations were small organizations and it was expensive to carry insurance because you didn’t have enough people,” he recalled. “And… this legislation… says that you’re allowed to bring different organizations together to get a cheaper rate for your overall insurance. I think it helps small business; it also helps the consumer: At the end of the day, they have a better insurance policy for less money.”
Ciresi, the only Democrat to sign onto the measure so far, noted that several of his Democratic colleagues cosponsored similar legislation when it was introduced in the past. He said he believes more support within his caucus could become apparent this time around.
“To me, it’s not controversial,” he said.
Another cosponsor, Representative Lee James (R-Titusville), recollected his own experience in the banking industry: Not long ago, local businesses could easily enroll in a regional Chamber of Commerce program to bargain for lower employee insurance rates. Like Ciresi, he suggested support for the Gaydos bill will capture the interest of more members from both House caucuses as they learn about its potential to expand coverage and aid small business.
“I cannot, in my imagination, understand why anyone would object to allowing merchants at least the opportunity to try to do something for employees,” he said. “So I would like to think the bill will pass and that Representative Ciresi is a pretty good guy and I think he’s a businessman who understands these things so maybe he’ll bring some of his friends along.”
Representative Tim Twardzik (R-Frackville) emphasized association plans’ potential to provide relatively low-cost care in an era when prices spiral higher and higher.
“Competition’s always good,” he said. “The more people you have looking to get this insurance, the better rates you’ll be able to get from your insurance company because they spread the risk out among more members. It’s a good business program.”
Gaydos’s bill was referred to the House Insurance Committee in April. She said she believes that the legislation could get a hearing as well as committee and floor votes in the Democrat-controlled chamber. Should it do so and pass, it could quickly gain traction in the GOP-run Senate.
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Pennsylvania Daily Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Joe Ciresi” by Rep. Joe Ciresi. Background Photo “Hospital” by Alvin Leopold.
