House Members Reintroduce Healthy Americans Act

July 15, 2008

On July 9, Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO) reintroduced the Healthy Americans Act (H.R. 6444) as a House amended companion bill to Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Robert Bennett’s (R-UT) bill S. 334. Both bills incorporate a key principle of NSBA’s health care proposal: individual responsibility.

The goal behind the House and Senate proposals is to get every American covered with health insurance through a combination of individual responsibility, federal assistance and employer involvement. The Healthy Americans Act will require all individuals to purchase a federally-defined health insurance package, which is based on the current Federal Employees Health Benefit Package standard Blue Cross Blue Shield plan.

As previously reported, private insurers will be allowed to offer these plans through the creation of a state Health Help Agency (HHA). Each state will be responsible for creating its own HHA which will then serve as a clearing house for private insurers to offer plans. The HHA also will facilitate the payment mechanisms for insurers, as well as provide individuals with quality and cost information. Click here to read more about the legislation from the E-newsletter announcing the original introduction of the Healthy Americans Act in 2007.

In April of this year, S. 334 was amended to expand employer and employee choices for affordable, universal coverage. The House version included these changes by allowing employers to retain the option of continuing to sponsor a health coverage plan for their employees. In this circumstance, the plan would be offered by the employer directly, and the employee would not have to buy a plan through their state HHA. However, the plan would have to be comparable to the basic plans offered through the state HHAs, and the employee would have the option of signing up for that plan with their employer or opting for one of the HHA plans.

The employer would still have to “cash out” the amount they were paying for each employee’s health benefits as a payment to their employees, but employees choosing their employers plan would pay those premiums back to the employer out of the cash-out payments. All of this would be done by the employer through withholding from the employee’s paycheck, much as it is done today. The employers could deduct the “cash out” as wages and the individual would get a tax credit up to the maximum permitted had they gone through the HHA. Employers offering coverage would also receive risk-adjusted payments to ensure that employers offering a Healthy Americans Private Insurance equivalent plan are not creating a separate risk pool.

NSBA applauds Senators Wyden and Bennett and Representatives Wasserman Schultz and Emerson for taking such a broad, thoughtful, and bipartisan approach to health care reform. While there are areas where NSBA has concerns with the Healthy Americans Act, the great efforts that have gone into the legislation have not gone unnoticed. NSBA looks forward to continuing the broader discussion on reforming the nation’s health care system to provide for affordable, accessible and quality health care for small-business owners and their employees.