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NFIB to hold
Congress accountable on Norwood-Dingell
vote
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Release Date:
10/06/99
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WASHINGTON, Oct. 6, 1999 --
The small business group NFIB today announced
that members of Congress who vote in favor of
the managed care reform bill offered by U.S.
Reps. Charles Norwood (10th Dist.-Ga.) and John
Dingell (16th Dist.-Mich.)will be held
accountable by small business. Any votes to
support Norwood-Dingell will be considered a
vote against small business.
"The
Norwood/Dingell bill does nothing to address the
problem of the uninsured -- three out of five of
whom are small business owners or have a family
head who is employed by a small firm -- and
everything to ensure that their ranks will, in
fact, increase," said NFIB Vice President Dan
Danner. "Mandating health benefits and opening
employers to liability is the last thing we need
when it comes to health care reform. The real
crisis in health care is whether you have health
insurance at all... and 44.3 million Americans
don't," Danner continued.
The bill
contains both mandates on health benefits and an
expansion of liability to insurance companies
and employers when patients are dissatisfied
with coverage and treatment decisions. Both
provisions, Danner says, will increase the cost
of health insurance dramatically. "For every
1percent increase in the cost of premiums, as
many as 300,000 people lose their coverage. That
fact makes Norwood-Dingell a poisonous bill that
has been sugar-coated in misleading
rhetoric."
NFIB has designated H.R. 2723,
The Bipartisan Consensus Managed Care
Improvement Act, as a "key vote," positioning it
among those the organization will count in
determining which members of Congress earn its
coveted "Guardian of Small Business"
award.
The National Federation of
Independent Business is the nation's largest
small business advocacy group. A nonprofit,
nonpartisan organization founded in 1943, NFIB
represents the consensus views of its 600,000
members in Washington and all 50 state capitals.
More information is available online at
www.nfib.com.
CONTACT: Mary Mead
Crawford or Jim
Weidman at
202.554.9000.
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