Association Health Plans

ASSOCIATION HEALTH PLANS -- (House of Representatives - May 03, 2005)

(Mr. BURGESS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, this is National Uninsured Week. In my home State of Texas, there are a significant number of people who are uninsured.

The number of uninsured has increased for the third year in a row and that is largely because of the drop of the employer based coverage.

Mr. Speaker, there is a tool, there is a lever we can pull to help stop the drop off in employer based coverage. That lever is called association health plans. In fact, this House passed association health plans several times during the 108th Congress. The problem is it has never been taken up by the other body.

What are association health plans? This is the ability for small businesses of a similar business model to band together and get the purchasing power of a large corporation in order to hold the cost down of providing insurance to their members.

Now, nearly 63 percent of all uninsured workers are employed by small businesses with fewer than 100 employees. It is estimated that association health plans would enable some 8 million currently uninsured individuals to receive coverage.

Mr. Speaker, I was so encouraged because the chairman of the relevant Senate committee said this year they were going to seriously take up association health plans. In fact, he has charged people on both sides of this question to come together and find solutions to finally allow association health plans to be available in this country.

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