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| Jack Faris is president of the National Federation of Independent Business. |
Ah, the traditional signs of summer - salt air, suntan lotion and
that pungent smell without which no vacation trip is complete - the fumes of
expensive gasoline. Although skyrocketing gas prices consume much of the
nation's news coverage, it is a challenge that can be controlled by the
most-proven tenet of free-market economics: competition - customers shopping
around for the lowest price.
Imagine how quickly America's health-care crisis could be solved if
competition were allowed here. Instead, powerful insurance monopolies are
determined to fight competition and keep their profit margins high at the
expense of millions of small businesses that today are subject to 50 different
state regulations governing health insurance.
According to the General Accounting Ofice, five or fewer insurers control at
least three-quarters of the small-group insurance market. This lack of
competition contributes to double-digit premium increases for many small
businesses and forces an increase in the number of their employees who are
uninsured.
Currently, 27 million working Americans are uninsured; 63 percent of those
are either self-employed or work for a small business with less than 100
employees. The crippling burden of having to deal with state insurance
regulations and the sky-high premiums they create is a problem in search of a
solution. That solution is the enactment of a federal law to allow the creation
of small-business plans.
Three decades ago, Congress passed the Employee Income Security Act that
pre-empted state insurance regulations for corporations and labor union
organizations. The move allowed these large entities to self-insure under one
uniform federal statute, thus taking advantage of group purchasing, volume
discounts and administrative efficiencies.
One of the great mysteries of Capitol Hill is how a sector of the economy
that represents 99.7 percent of all employers, provides jobs for half of the
private-sector workforce and generates 60 percent to 80 percent of net-new
American jobs each year got overlooked to begin with. But it is long past time
to undo that mistake.
The temptation for lawmakers to flee the nation's capital as warmer weather
approaches is always strong, but the National Federation of Independent Business
has called on its 600,000 small-business members to turn up the heat in
Washington, D.C., to demand that Congress finally bring fairness and competition
to the health insurance market by enacting the Small Business Health Fairness
Act of 2005.
Twice-approved by the House of Representatives during the last Congress (the
Senate did not act), the measure would open the way to fair, competitive health
insurance for small firms by letting them band together across state lines to
buy insurance through their bona fide trade associations. By making insurance
more affordable, more small firms will provide it to their employees and
families. Research indicates that as many as 8.5 million previously uninsured
workers could get coverage if the act is passed.
Who's afraid of a little competition? That's a question members of Congress
should ask those few insurance monopolies with the big profit margins.
Jack Fair is president of NFIB (the National Federation of Independent
Business), the nation's largest small-business advocacy group. A non-profit,
non-partisan organization founded in 1943, NFIB represents the consensus views
of its 600,000 members in Washington, D.C., and all 50 state capitals.
