Bipartisan Health Plan Bill Introduced

June 10, 2008

Today a bipartisan group of U.S. House Members unveiled the latest version of the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP Act). This legislation is designed to make insurance more available and affordable for 47.1 million employees of the nation's 5.8 million small businesses and 14.1 million self-employed individuals. It would lower health care costs for small businesses by allowing them to band together to obtain lower premiums, provide tax credits for small business owners to offset contributions to employee premiums, and ban health status rating in order to protect businesses from large rate increases simply because one employee gets sick. In the Senate, companion legislation (S. 2795) was introduced in April. The bill is supported by both business and labor interests and is the result of long negotiations.


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