Washington, DC -  In Missouri, 646,000 people are without health insurance.  Nationwide, 43.6 million Americans are uninsured.  Sixty percent of them own, work for, or rely on a small business that cannot afford to offer them coverage.

This problem does not exist for medium-sized businesses or for Fortune 500 companies, which are exempt from the rules, regulations, and mandates that exist in each of the 50 states.  For small businesses, however, combining with other companies in similar situations is impossible if that cooperation means crossing state lines.

 

The fewer employees working at a business, the more expensive it is for the business to offer them health care coverage.  More and more employees, when faced with the difficult decision to purchase health insurance on their own or go without, decline to buy coverage for themselves and their families.  When they do go out on their own, they face health care costs rising at an average of more than 20 percent per year.

 

The result is a vast segment of the American public relying on emergency rooms and over-the-counter medications to fill their health care needs.

 

Every American, with or without health insurance, should care about the plight of these 43.6 million Americans.  Since they do not see a doctor regularly, they do not receive preventative screenings.  On their own, uninsured Americans do not recognize the symptoms of serious diseases until irreversible damage has been done.  Treatment options are limited, and treatments are overall not as effective as when illnesses such as cancer are discovered late.

 

Too often, uninsured families go broke when they are hit with an unexpected catastrophic illness.  As the family’s resources are depleted on medical expenses, the bills pile up.  Eventually the family must turn to the Missouri Medicaid system for help – and that costs taxpayers money.  Something that starts as a small business problem ends up being a problem for all of us.

 

In the long run, the costs of health care only go up when expensive procedures and last-minute treatments replace preventative care and early detection.  We all pay higher prices, insured or uninsured, and access to proper health care eventually becomes a luxury when it should be a right.

 

I do not want that to happen. 

 

A major component of the solution to the problem of uninsured Americans was passed by Congress this year in the form of the Small Business Health Fairness Act.  I was proud to fight for this measure, because it proposes a solution right at the source of the problem – for the small businesses that are forced to drop coverage for their employees.

 

The legislation would create nationwide Association Health Plans (AHPs), allowing small businesses to band together and purchase health insurance through national associations at group rates.  In this way, the costs of insurance are spread over a greater number of beneficiaries.

 

Research estimates that AHPs could reduce the number of uninsured Americans by as many as 8.5 million.

 

The idea is a simple one, but regulations currently prevent small businesses from bonding together across state lines to negotiate prices with insurers.  My colleague in the U.S. Senate, Jim Talent, has been a leading advocate for AHPs from his position on the Senate Small Business Committee.  For years, Senator Talent has sponsored legislation to create AHPs for small businesses in the House of Representatives.  Now, working together with Senator Kit Bond, we will prioritize this legislation for both bodies of Congress.

 

No one solution will alleviate the problems facing the 43.6 million Americans who need health insurance.  AHPs, paired with other commonsense proposals like tax-preferred Medical Savings Accounts and pre-tax Flexible Spending Accounts, as well as other tax credits for small businesses and individual Americans, will substantially reduce the number of uninsured.

 

AHPs give our small businesses the clout they need to offer good benefits for employees and to continue doing what they do best: driving the American economy.