Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to stand here before you to offer this bill. This is a very important bill, H.R. 5447, the Small Business Health Care Relief Act. It is bipartisan legislation that has been more than 2 years in the making. Mr. Speaker, as a small-business owner and a heart surgeon, I understand how important coverage is to get good, high-quality health care. But I also understand, from the standpoint of being a small- business owner, how difficult it often is and how expensive it has become to provide this kind of coverage for employees. In 2013, Treasury issued regulatory guidance indicating that any employer offering health reimbursement accounts, also known as HRAs, was in violation of the Affordable Care Act group health plan requirements, irrespective of the size of the employer. The very smallest of small businesses were affected by this, businesses that were trying to help their employees, doing the very best they can to help their employees have coverage. Furthermore, Treasury's guidance included an astronomically high penalty fine assessed on employers offering these HRAs: $100 per day per employee, with the potential of accruing a $36,500 fine per year per employee. This is just draconian treatment for small business. In my home State of Louisiana, small businesses--those with 50 or fewer employees--account for 72 percent of all businesses in Louisiana.…”