Custom Health Option and Individual Care Expense Arrangement Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. 3799.

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, we are here today considering this legislation because we have listened to the American people and are taking action on their behalf.

The Ways and Means Committee has traveled over 5,000 miles to hear directly from working Americans about the impact today's economy has had on them and their communities. Whether it be in a lumber mill in West Virginia or a cattle ranch in Oklahoma, workers, families, farmers, and small businesses have told us the same thing: They need relief from the Biden economy.

The legislation before us today will help make life a little bit easier on small businesses. It allows them to provide more options to their employees when it comes to health insurance benefits.

The CHOICE Arrangement Act gives small businesses more flexibility to provide health insurance benefits to current and future workers. Introduced by Representative Hern, this legislation codifies a Trump administration rule allowing small businesses to reimburse employees for buying their own health insurance on the individual market.

Washington should not stand in the way of workers getting the healthcare coverage that is best for them and their families. Just as important, workers should be able to take their insurance plan with them if they leave their current job. This bill gives small businesses the opportunity, if they so choose, to shed the administrative burden of managing traditional insurance coverage. At the same time, it gives workers more options for their own healthcare and makes the coverage portable.

Also included in the underlying bill is a provision from Representative Tenney that ensures small businesses are made aware of the flexible, tax-advantaged insurance coverage options available to them and their employees. We have heard that 70 percent of small businesses are not aware of the various health insurance options out there, such as CHOICE arrangements, qualified small employer health reimbursement arrangements, or the small business healthcare tax credit. This bill would make sure small businesses are notified about the availability and tax benefits of these options so businesses can make more informed decisions about how to support their employees' healthcare choices.

This legislation also includes important provisions to increase access to stop-loss insurance and expand association health plans, which will create more choices for American small businesses to offer health benefits to their workers at lower costs.

Mom-and-pop stores did not set out to be paper pushers and benefit managers, and we should not force them into that role. I urge my colleagues to support this bill to help small businesses support their workforce and let them focus on what they do best: serving their customers and employees.

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Chair, all CHOICE Arrangement Act plans must cover preexisting conditions, cap out-of-pocket expenses, and cover key health benefits.

CHOICE arrangements do not allow employers to discriminate against any group of employees. They require equal contributions to all employees with the same employment status, and only adjust contribution amount for age and family size, to make the record straight.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Hern), the sponsor of this legislation.

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, the CHOICE Arrangement Act will expand coverage for more types of workers by allowing employers to offer a CHOICE Arrangement to different groups of employees who may not have been offered health insurance previously, such as part-time or seasonal workers.

Under this policy, nearly 1 million workers will have health insurance coverage for the very first time.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Tenney), who is an author of a piece of this legislation.

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Smucker).

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, when Democrats expanded ObamaCare subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act, those billions of dollars flow directly to large health insurers. CHOICE arrangements, however, allows small businesses--small businesses--to reimburse their own employees directly for them to shop and purchase their own health insurance. This is how Washington should be empowering small businesses, not bailing out large health insurers.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Mrs. Chavez-DeRemer).

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I remind the body that Build Back Better was never signed into law because neither the Democrats in the Senate nor the White House would even support it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meuser).

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman from Texas has no further speakers, I am prepared to close. I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Congress has an opportunity to help small businesses by making it easier for those who choose to provide health insurance for their employees.

This bill is the best of both worlds for small businesses and workers. It relieves many small businesses of the burden of administering a complex health insurance plan by allowing them to instead offer meaningful financial support to employees so that they can buy their own insurance. It takes some of the guessing game out of offering coverage by making sure small businesses are informed of the various options they have. It gives workers the freedom to choose the best possible coverage for themselves and their families.

By passing this legislation, we will allow small businesses to get back to the basics, helping their customers, taking care of their employees, and serving their communities.

I want to address the misleading claims we have heard from our Democrat colleagues. At our markup, one of my Democrat colleagues called the health plan options under this bill junk plans. That is unequivocally false. These funds can only be used to purchase plans that cover preexisting conditions. Regardless of what you hear on the other side, this covers plans with preexisting conditions. It covers plans that cap out-of-pocket expenses and guarantees coverage during open enrollment.

They also claim that we are opening a backdoor for businesses to discriminate in the health benefits offered to their employees. CHOICE arrangements provide the opposite of discrimination. They provide equal contributions to all employees with the same employment status, only adjusting for age and family size.

In fact, many businesses today don't offer health benefits to any of their part-time employees. Through CHOICE arrangements, these employees may be seeing their first offer of meaningful health benefits.

Today, we are taking another step forward to cut the bureaucratic red tape holding back small businesses. We should make it easier, not harder, to give America's workers, families, farmers, and small businesses access to flexible healthcare options.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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