Protecting Affordable Coverage For Employees Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here.

I rise in support of H.R. 1624, the Protecting Affordable Coverage for Employees Act. This bill, which I introduced along with my friend from California (Mr. Cárdenas), Congressman Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona will protect smaller employers from increased healthcare costs and will prevent their employees from being forced out of their current healthcare plans.

The small group market is currently defined as 1 to 50 employees, but a provision in the healthcare law will expand the group's size from 1 to 100 on January 1. With this expansion comes more onerous regulations and the expectation of dramatic rate hikes.

One estimate by Oliver Wyman predicts that those in the 51 to 100 group will see an average of an 18 percent premium increase in 2016 based on the new rating rules alone. H.R. 1624 stops the mandated expansion of the small group market that will occur on January 1 and allows States to define their own market.

Mr. Speaker, I have heard from many Kentuckians who would be impacted by this change, and their concerns are real. Small businesses are afraid to expand, and mid-sized businesses have no idea what the costs would be or how they can plan for this new change.

this issue has widespread support, with over half the House as cosponsors and nearly a third of the Senate as cosponsors. Members on both sides of the aisle agree that we must act now to stop this new mandate.

It has been a great pleasure working with the gentleman from California (Mr. Cárdenas). It is an issue that we see is happening in Washington, that is happening out in our districts, out across to the businesses.

Both sides of the aisle have come together to say: Let's change the law. Let's make sure that the small businesses and medium-sized businesses are not affected, and let's move forward.

It wasn't just that we signed our names as cosponsors. There was a lot of hard work that I know the gentleman from California (Mr. Cárdenas) did to bring more and more cosponsors to this bill. This is a significant change. It is significant for the people who live in our districts. I encourage support.

I appreciate Mr. Cárdenas, Ms. Sinema, and Mr. Mullin.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source