All news

NASE Asks Senators To Lower Health Costs For Small Business

Friday, July 10, 2009

The United States Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship recently held a roundtable to discuss the impact of various health reform proposals on small businesses. Kristie Arslan, Executive Director of the Legislative Office for the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE), participated in the roundtable along with Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and other small business owners and advocates.

Arslan spoke about how NASE Members consistently cite health care as the top issue affecting their business, and asked Congress to help the self-employed with the high health care costs that are damaging their businesses. Arslan mentioned the results of a June 2009 survey by the NASE in which approximately 60 percent of respondents chose cost containment as the most important aspect of reform for them and their business. 

“Our nations’ smallest businesses not only want health reform but in fact, they need reform in order for their businesses to remain viable,” she commented. “Improving affordability and stability of premiums as well as providing for sustainable cost containment in the overall healthcare system must be a top reform priority.”

Both Small Business Committee Chair Mary Landrieu (D-La.), and Ranking Member Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), acknowledged the high costs that small business owners face to provide health care for themselves and their employees.

“The cost of providing coverage is rising at an unpredictable and unsustainable rate, making it difficult for small business owners to secure stable healthcare for their employees,” said Sen. Landrieu. “Simply put, we need to reform our health care system to provide small businesses the opportunity to grow and prosper. The cost of doing nothing is just too great.” 

“Small business health reform must be a central component to our broader reform efforts, and that is why I am working diligently, as a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, to craft bipartisan, comprehensive health care reform legislation that will make health care more affordable and universal for small businesses and the self-employed,” added Sen. Snowe. 

Watch archived footage of the roundtable here.

View comments submitted on behalf of the self-employed by Executive Director Kristie Arslan.

Advocacy

health reform Senator Ron Wyden Senator Olympia Snowe self-employed Senator Mary Landrieu Senate Small Business Committee health care