NSGA Declares Support for Association Health Plan Bill

A House committee last week approved legislation that would help small businesses meet rising health insurance costs by authorizing the creation of Association Health Plans. The National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA) strongly supports this legislation and encourages its members to write to their Representatives and Senators urging passage of this important bill.

H.R. 525, the Small Business Health Fairness Act, sponsored by Employer-Employee Relations Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson, R-Texas, was approved 25-22. The bill would let trade associations like NSGA establish Association Health Plans that would allow member companies to band together and purchase insurance coverage at the lower rates available to large groups.

“NSGA supports this legislation and encourages all of its members to write their Representatives and U.S. Senators, asking them to vote for Association Health Plans,” said NSGA President & CEO Jim Faltinek. “Rising healthcare costs make it difficult for NSGA members to provide this extremely valuable benefit to their employees.

“If Association Health Plans are signed into law, then NSGA will pursue implementation of this program as soon as the insurance industry is ready for us,” Faltinek said.

“Rising premiums are making it increasingly difficult for small businesses to be able to afford to provide health insurance for their workers,” said K. Conwell Smith of the National Retail Federation, of which NSGA is a member. “It's time that we let small employers benefit from economies of scale. Allowing small businesses to band together to purchase health insurance is only one part of the solution for lowering health care costs, but can bring immediate relief to the businesses that need it most.

“Many of America's uninsured are employees of small businesses that cannot afford to provide coverage for their workers. This legislation can go a long way toward helping those workers and their families get the health insurance they need,” Smith said.

The House has passed AHP legislation at least twice before, and is expected to give the Johnson bill easy approval in the near future. Senate prospects are less clear, however. A Senate companion bill was introduced last month by Senator Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, but Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., is interested in developing an alternative to AHPs that would the facilitate the offering of standardized health insurance products and processes across state lines.