President Donald Trump’s administration is rolling out a new policy aimed at expanding access to affordable healthcare for the millions of Americans that work for small businesses.
The Department of Labor is finalizing a rule that will allow more small businesses to create Association Health Plans. These plans allow multiple small businesses to group together and leverage their combined buying power to purchase health insurance at a more affordable rate by expanding the risk pool, as well as decreasing the administrative cost associated with managing individual health plans.
“We aim to allow more small businesses to form associations to buy affordable and competitive health insurance,” said President Trump on the expansion of AHPs.
While Obamacare made health insurance costs skyrocket for Americans across the board, small business owners and their employees were some of the hardest hit. Indeed, the implementation of the law caused many to lose their plans all together or be forced to drop them due to skyrocketing premiums.
In fact, from 2010-2017, the insured rate among employees of businesses with between 3-49 employees fell by 25 percent. And the “exchanges” former President Obama touted? Enrollment is currently 60 percent less than the Congressional Budget Office anticipated when the law went into effect.
By expanding access to AHPs and allowing groups of small businesses to enjoy the benefits of a large business, the Trump administration is continuing to its work to dismantle as much of the failed Obamacare experiment as possible. However, true repeal and reform rests on the shoulders of the US Senate which has thus far refused to hold true to its promise to fully repeal the onerous law.
