One of the issues that Realtors took to their legislators in Washington DC last week was Small Business Health Coverage. Realtors have seen strong support for small business health reforms from the House of Representatives, the same support has not been received from the Untied States Senate. Our delegation from Florida met with Senators Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez on this specific issue on Wednesday, May 16th. Both Senators agreed that somehting needed to be done to protect the 46 million Americans that have no health care. The Senators were made aware that over 1/2 of those people go to work everyday for small businesses that do not or cannot provide health insurnace benefits. Many are self employed and unable to find insurance in the individual insurance market. The Realtor trade organization has over 1,300,000 members and the law does not allow us to provide group health insurance for our members, many other organizations face the same problem. Why? Insurance companies do not want us to be able to offer affordable insurance to our memebership, many of us pay enormous rates in order to provide coverage for our familes. Who gets that money? Insurance companies!
In most States many individuals, the self employed including Realtors, depend upon the individual insurance market for health insuarnce. Now if you understand how insurance works, rates are determined by the risk, as an individual you do not have the advantage to spread that risk out over many members, it's just you and your family. Group policies that spread the risk out over many members are not available to the most in the self employed market. The individual insurance market allows no room for negotiation, we are made to feel lucky that we were even able to obtain coverage. You and I the customer either takes it or leaves it accepting whatever coverage is offered at whatever price it's offered at. Note that today nearly 30% of all Realtors have "NO" health insurance. On top of this, between 1996 and 2002 the average premium went up by 44 percent in the individual market for health insurance and it's risen higher since 2002! The facts are this, in 1996 13% of all Realtors had no health Insurance, that number rose to 28% in 2006.
Self employed individuals can no longer wait for major health care reform. We do not need anymore studies or commissions, we need help. The individual insurance market for health insurance is broken. Solutions must be provided so that self employed and small business employers can achieve the savings of spreading the risks and costs to groups through pooling or some similar method.
Realtors in Washington worked hard last week to insist that the Senate makes Small Business Health Coverage a priority. Call or email your State Senator today and ask them to support "Small Business Health Coverage"
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