Health Care & Small Business Health Insurance (BDR 76)

We have had a long history of helping to make health care better for all Southern Nevadans. My husband has been a physician for over twenty-five years in Southern Nevada involved in HMO’s, in private practice, and most recently in giving back to OUR country as a VA physician.

I and my brother have testified on numerous health care bills and authored two additional pieces of legislation over the last two legislative sessions. One was Bill Draft Request 76, providing access to affordable health insurance at no cost to taxpayers, in the 2005 Legislative Session, and the other was Senate Bill 257 in the 2003 Legislative Session to solve the Medical Malpractice Insurance “Crisis” without forcing our physicians to leave Nevada to continue their practice.

Health Care Insurance For Small Business Employees (BDR 76)

The following is a brief synopsis of the dynamic plan for health care insurance for small business employees:

All small business employees organized into one large insurance pool. All plans currently being discussed include this feature. Our legislation includes a provision to let qualified health insurance providers to submit bids to the Nevada Insurance Commissioner. Savings over current situation would amount to over forty percent.

Granting freedom to small business employees. Our plan would guarantee additional cost savings culminating in truly affordable heath care insurance for tens of thousands of uninsured Nevadans. The method would simply entail giving each small employee the freedom to choose fourteen coverages front he twenty-one currently mandated. No longer would a sixty-year old single male be forced to purchase maternity coverage.

The alternative to our plan, currently being considered, is to not trust the small business employees to make intelligent choices about their own health care insurance needs, and instead shake the "Federal Money tree " to subsidize this freedom grab. The thought process is to have the taxpayers pay the subsidize affordable health care insurance. The translation is that we would tax all taxpayers more so that small business employees would continue to not be able to purchase health care insurance.

Why would insurance companies enter into fierce competition with low rates? Insurance companies would compete by bidding low rates as they would be guaranteed the exclusive rights to sell health care insurance to tens of thousands of hard working Nevadans. There would be a floor set on a minimum number of employees to be covered statewide triggering the plan.

Why OUR plan succeeds when other have failed. Our plan is based solely on the values upon which our great nation was built: fair, honest, and open competition; trust in those who built and defended this great nation to choose their own health care; and not let federal taxpayer dollars always be our dictator.