well i'm very impressed with this crowd great good afternoon and thank you very much for being here and this is not the small business committee said temporary room archimedes being renovated but the midst of a health care crisis since the year two thousand because of coverage for this firms have jumped more than eighty percent premiums are now so high in fact that many entrepreneurs are finding it impossible to offer any coverage at all this is nothing short of shame for small businesses should not have to choose between ensuring their employees stalking their shelves i think nation we must commit ourselves to finding a solution that works for all americans this afternoon we will take an important step towards finding human issue that is wiped along with congressman cleaver of pennsylvania i am proud to introduce the small business choice act of two thousand and eight the choice act is the first step in and sure in that all americans have access to quality affordable health care this legislation tackles two of the most important significant challenges facing small employers it will not only stem the volatility of insurance premiums but it will also decrease the price of coverage self employed individuals stand to save five thousand dollars each whereas the business themselves will save up wards of thirty four percent in the last decade health care has emerged as one of america's most pressing legislative mater's perhaps not surpris this bipartisan issue has already pushed its way to the forefront of the presidential election and in fact the choice draws upon concepts in the health care plans of both meanwhile the choice act will also need to gate the kinds of high cost claims that drive premiums through the roof additionally it will encourage voluntary purchasing pools by linking ref credit to insurance purchases because of the bipartisan consensus approach we took in developing this bill the choice act has one to port from a broad range of small business advocates including the national association of real stores the national restaurant association the u s chamber of commerce the national federation of independent businesses to name a few after years and years of steady erosion american health care has finally call off the system is broken and it's need to be change and working towards that change we must begin by covering our small firms twenty million and i repeat twenty million of our nation's forty seven million uninsured are small business employees after all  himself he ran a family on their story for nearly thirty years he has been a champion for important issues facing small businesses on the issue of health care he has been a leader in finding innovative ways to expand you i'm very pleased to be here with cars woman veloce chris to introduce the small business choice act of two thousand and eight and i want to commend her for her leadership on this issue small businesses are the backbone of innovation and job creation in our economy and this bill will address two problems at once helping small businesses to remain competitive in the economy while getting more people covered with health insurance small businesses are the job creators in our economy in fact small businesses employ a full half of all the private sector employees in the united states and they represent the face of innovation in our market some of the biggest firms in the market today were started with just an idea by a couple of people sometimes in a garage yet these businesses grew to major world wide corporations like mac microsoft and google that have changed our lives with the products that they offer if individuals cannot afford to operate small businesses in order to bring new innovative ideas and products to the market we are all losing out as a result time and again when i hear from small business owners of the issue of health insurance is among their top concerns assisting small businesses in providing health care to their employees will do a great deal to close the gap in the forty six million individuals in the us without health insurance additionally the help of our overall economy depends on our ability to find a way to facilitate small businesses being able to provide health coverage for their employees the purpose of the choice act which we're here today to introduce is to eliminate premium volatility and reduce premium cost by encouraging small businesses to transfer the risk of high medical costs to a captive excess claims insure formed by a small business crop of excess claims insurance is designed to limit the risk of high cost or catastrophic medical claims to help ensure providing coverage to small business the legislation will give small businesses more options and the ability to provide affordable health insurance to their employees by encouraging the formation of voluntary small business health insurance purchasing pools as well as mitigating the risk of high cost insurance claims that drive up insurance premiums for small employers the veil also creates important incentives for small businesses to provide the families of their workers with expanded coverage small businesses would be encouraged to participate in the cooperative through a refundable tax credit we're proud that the bill has been endorsed by a wide variety of outside groups and the congresswoman gave you a number of those groups already again providing our small business men and women with the tools necessary to provide health insurance for their employees is not only important in getting more people in the united states covered with health care but it is an issue that affects the ability of small businesses to continue to innovate and create jobs across the country  pitts have afforded us today and allowing us to be here and here is my work with members of both the house and senate for many months to develop legislation that addresses the cost of health insurance and health care today i'm proud to stand here on behalf of my one point two five million members to thank them for their efforts to date and to thank them for this choice bill that's before you now the real estate agent to help you buy or sell your property is not an employee of the realty firm whose name appears on the business cards rather they are independent contractors the smallest of small firms like other small community based self employed americans real estate agents are forced to look for insurance in the individual markets in too many instances choices are limited costs are very high even many agents with no coverage at all real estate brokers on the other hand who employ an assistant a receptionist or any other individual for example often find existing state small group plans equally limited and equally costly recently the national association provided congress with a survey which we perform with our members the results show how urgent it is that our that we find affordable health care for not just our membership but for small businesses in general a quarter of the survey one in four realtors more than three hundred thousand of our members do not have health insurance all of those who do have insurance just five percent are covered by their farms twenty five percent rely on their partner or spouse to help with insurance coverage the largest group forty three percent purchase health insurance on their own the cost of health insurance actually outweighs or rivals the cost of their home mortgage on a monthly basis the choice act tackles two of the most significant challenges facing small employers the high cost of comprehensive health insurance and the volatility of insurance itself building complexes by encouraging professional associations credit unions and others to form pools or arrange for pooling arrangements for the purpose of offering reinsurance for excessive claims the choice act also offers a cancer center for the self employed and small employers to join a crop i cooperated provide a refund of all tax credits you heard congressman discuss substantial portion of the amount contributed to pay insurance premiums companies that meet the bills benchmarks for premium contributions were receiv refundable tax credit for as much as seventy percent of the cost of the company paid premiums effectively reducing the cost of fighting quality health insurance benefits by the company we believe that this measure is an innovative approach and deals with the challenges facing our members as well and perhaps most importantly it is one that can easily work their existing state regulated system of health insurance or any other reformed health care system that's built upon by the private sector in the future on behalf again of the realtors i'd like to thank represent questions any questions that you may have which they wouldn't the company who is taking the sixty five percent tax to do it deductible will be upset by the fact that they cannot double dip and if you are offering health care insurance now you will write off a tax deduction so that will be upset by not taking that tax deduction can you explain for us it's a little bit complicated basically the tax to the tax credit will be offset by the debt but the tax deduction we feel as though there should be very much of an increase beyond that in terms of the actual costs looking at the other that are currently been introduced in congress as well as some in previous congresses we estimate that the cost will be significantly less considering that the tax credits only applied to that portion to encourage people to even enter into the corporate or any other question and we actually work with a couple of actuarial firms as well as insurers in the industry who helped us develop those numbers what we did is we actually look that some of the current plans that are in place on the books if you what the potential savings would be given our tax credits and we were able to come up with the number of five thousand there's an exact number but that's pretty close any other question they need to hear is that we're going to lower the rate of premiums by fostering competition among the insurance company in the sense that all the hearings that we conducted in our small business community regarding the lack of health insurance or health coverage for small businesses they're concerned i was brought to us time and time again from the insurance industry is the exposure to risk by small group markets and this is going to be address because what we what the choice does is that allow for small companies to pull together and create a captive company that will provide reinsurance with that small company could go to the private market and say to the insurance company you don't have to address the issue of risks because we are spreading risk so we'll drive insurance companies should lie blue cross blue shield to say there is going to be more small insurance company coming back into the market and offering different options so that type of competition will drive blue cross blue shield to think that they might have to companies are facing today how can they spread the risk so that we could lower premiums and that is the way to do that and of course the tax incentives that will be provided for small companies if they decide to provide insurance for themselves and their employees and the question