Allow Small Businesses to Purchase Health Insurance Across State Lines

To be successful, small, independent businesses must compete in the marketplace for well-qualified and highly-trained workers. The compensation package of wages and benefits they offer to existing and prospective employees must at least be comparable to what is being offered by their competitors. Unfortunately, small businesses, by virtue of their size, cannot access high quality health care coverage available to larger employers. That is why WIB was among the primary advocates of Wisconsin Co-Op Care which allows small businesses to pool together to purchase more affordable health insurance.

Enhancing the health insurance purchasing power of small businesses is important, but it is not the only step which should be taken to help small business owners access affordable health care for themselves and their workers. Large employers can opt to self-insure their workers. These self-insured plans are subject to federal regulation and thereby exempt from state-imposed health insurance mandates which drive up the cost of health care coverage. This option is not available to small businesses.

WIB supports legislation to allow Wisconsin small business to purchase health insurance across state lines thereby giving small business the same access to “mandate-free” health insurance that is available to larger employers.