[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 65 (Monday, April 23, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S4838]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      NATIONAL SMALL BUSINESS WEEK

  Ms. SNOWE. Madam President, today I commemorate National Small 
Business Week, which President Bush designated for April 22-28, 2007. 
As ranking member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and 
Entrepreneurship, I simply cannot understate the vital role of small 
business in our Nation's economy. Small businesses comprise 99 percent 
of all businesses in the United States, employ more than half of the 
total private sector workforce, and are responsible for the creation of 
more than two-thirds of all new jobs each year. It is essential that we 
in Congress continue to support small businesses' efforts to grow and 
do what they do best--create new jobs.
  If there is one concern we have all heard time and again, it is the 
exorbitant cost to small businesses of providing health insurance to 
their employees. In fact, small business owners in all 50 States have 
cited rising health insurance costs as their number one concern. Health 
insurance premiums have increased at double-digit percentage levels in 
4 of the past 6 years--far outpacing inflation and wage gains. 
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, last year the average health 
policy for an individual was $4,242; the average family plan cost 
$11,480.
  As we are all well aware, these sharply rising costs are leading 
fewer and fewer small businesses to offer health insurance to their 
employees. According to Kaiser, in 2002, 58 percent of our Nation's 
smallest businesses, those with less than 10 employees, offered health 
insurance. In 2004, only 52 percent were able to offer their employees 
health insurance. Today, just 48 percent of our smallest businesses are 
now able to offer health insurance as a workplace benefit. As you can 
see, that is a 10 percentage point reduction over the past 5 years. 
Clearly, we are heading in the wrong direction.
  Further compounding the problem is the fact that small group 
insurance markets exhibit no real competition. No competition means 
higher costs. And higher costs mean no health insurance. I recently 
requested a Government Accountability Office report, which revealed a 
staggering consolidation in the State small group insurance markets. 
Today, the five largest carriers now have more than a 75 percent market 
share in 26 States--and control 98 percent of the small group market in 
Maine.
  This trend is simply unacceptable and represents nothing short of a 
crisis--and one that can and must be fixed, now. In the Senate, I have 
been a longstanding champion of small business health plans and I have 
introduced legislation in the past two Congresses that would allow 
small businesses to ``pool'' together, across State lines, and offer 
uniform health insurance plans to their employees, at significantly 
lower costs.
  I firmly believe that small business health plans are a critical 
solution to the small business health insurance crisis. It is a matter 
of simple fairness. Just like larger businesses and unions, I believe 
small businesses should have the option to purchase health plans across 
State lines with uniform benefits packages. It would allow them to shop 
for affordable, quality plans with much lower administrative costs 
while at the same time drastically shrinking the ranks of the nearly 47 
million Americans living without health insurance.
  Moving forward this year, we need to leave no stone unturned in our 
search for solutions to this crisis. For example, we should examine 
ways to use the Tax Code as a mechanism for increasing access to health 
care, including through ``pooling mechanisms, and injecting competition 
into the State small group insurance markets. This is why I am 
currently working with a number of my colleagues in the Senate, on both 
sides of the political aisle, to forge a bipartisan bill that will pass 
the Senate and be signed into law. Senate Finance Committee Chairman 
Baucus has announced that we will soon consider health care legislation 
in the Finance Committee--and I look forward to a robust productive 
debate there. I also thank Senator Enzi for all of his tremendous 
efforts in getting legislation passed through the HELP Committee last 
year, and for having that legislation considered on the Senate floor 
for the first time ever.
  Frankly, now is a time for action, not words. It is incumbent upon 
this Congress to think ``outside of the box'' to solve this crisis. We 
need to consider all options on the table, including a number of 
recently passed State reforms. We are at a critical juncture on this 
issue. The United States has the greatest health care system in the 
world, and yet nearly 47 million Americans are uninsured. Our goal 
ought to be providing health care access for all, and that means 
greatly expanding coverage so that we can significantly reduce our 
Nation's uninsured.
  We must figure out how to solve the persistent criticisms that have 
mired small business health insurance legislation in Congress. We must 
address how to allow health insurers to provide lower cost products to 
small businesses across State lines while maintaining the most widely 
accepted and necessary benefits and services. We must tackle questions 
of how to ``rate,'' or price, these products--and also how this can be 
done in a uniform manner, without jeopardizing consumer protections. 
And we can and we must do all this without injuring existing health 
insurance markets in the States. Plain and simple, Congress must bring 
up small business health insurance legislation this year, in a 
bipartisan, comprehensive way that can secure significant bipartisan 
support.

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