Senate Committee to Continue Discussions on Health Care Bill This Week

Vote could come on Wednesday
RISMEDIA, March 14 ? The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee has moved closer to a vote on a bill to allow business and trade associations to band their members together and offer group health insurance to working families, defeating a Democratic alternative proposal, U.S. Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the HELP Committee said. The mark up will be continued on Wednesday at 9 a.m.

The bipartisan bill, ?The Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act,? (S.1955) which was introduced by Enzi and cosponsored by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), faced dozens of Democratic amendments in last week’s mark up, but was not successfully amended. Today, the Senate has taken its first major step in 15 years toward more affordable health insurance options for small business and working families,? Enzi said.

Enzi said he was greatly encouraged by personal assurances he received from the HELP Committee?s ranking member, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), that senators on the Democrat side of the aisles will convene to finish work and vote on the bill by noon on March 15.

?Though we have our differences on how to address growing concerns about health insurance and health care costs, I deeply appreciate Senator Kennedy?s commitment to putting this bill to a vote,? Enzi said. As Senator Kennedy and others have said today, this is constructive dialog that has been absent from the HELP Committee for too long.?

The Enzi-Nelson bill, S.1955, got a boost just hours before last week’s markup with the release of a study, prepared by the Milwaukee firm of Mercer Oliver Wyman, Inc. for the National Small Business Association. The report found that:

S. 1955 would reduce health insurance costs for small business by 12 percent. In today’s dollars – about $1,000 per employee;

S. 1955 would reduce the number of uninsured in working families by 8 percent?or approximately 1 million people.

Modeling by Mercer Oliver Wyman, which assumed passage and enactment of the bill into law, forecasts the plan will alleviate some of the health insurance cost pressures faced by small employers.

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