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National Conference of State Legislatures
^{The Forum for America's Ideas}

March 16, 2005   The Honorable John Boehner Chairman Committee on Education and the Workforce                                                 U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C.  20515   Re: H.R. 525, the Small Business Health Fairness Act Dear Chairman Boehner and Representative Miller:     The Honorable George Miller Ranking Member Committee on Education and the Workforce                      U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C.  20515  John Adams Hurson Chairman, Health & Government Operations Committee Maryland House of Delegates President, NCSL James E. Greenwalt Director, Senate Information Systems and Administrative Services Minnesota Staff Chair, NCSL William T. Pound Executive Director   On behalf of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) I am writing to express our opposition to H.R. 525, the Small Business Health Fairness Act. Despite sincere efforts to make improvements to the legislation to address state concerns, our key issues remain unresolved.

This legislation would:

• preempt state laws that provide critical protections to consumers and fails to replace them with adequate federal protections;
• destabilize the state small group insurance market, undermining previously enacted state and federal insurance reforms, and reintroducing practices that had been banned by those laws; and
• provide insufficient resources to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to perform the necessary regulatory and oversight duties associated with regulating health insurers, providing fertile soil for unscrupulous entities to flourish unfettered by state laws, state lawmakers and state regulators.

We are mindful of the extreme hardship many small businesses face as they try to provide affordable and high quality health care coverage for their workers.  NCSL remains committed to working with you and other members of Congress to find solutions that will provide high quality, affordable health care coverage for employees of small businesses and for all of our constituents.

Sincerely,
William T. Pound
Executive Director

cc:  Members, House Committee on Education and the Workforce