California Small Businesses Applaud Assembly̢'s Passage of AB 52

The California Assembly today passed AB 52, legislation protecting small businesses and consumers from unreasonable health insurance rate hikes. This bill is a commonsense measure that strikes the right balance between getting small businesses, access to high-quality, affordable insurance and maintaining a competitive, robust healthcare industry in the state.

Federal healthcare reform provides a number of provisions aimed at lowering small businesses, healthcare costs, including establishing exchanges in 2014 that allow small employers to band together to purchase insurance at lower rates, requiring insurers to spend more money on patient care and less money on administrative costs, and creating a process in which state health insurance regulators will review rate increases before they're enacted. However, if the regulator finds a rate increase to be unfair or excessive, under the new healthcare law the state has no power to stop it from going into effect. AB 52 will change this by allowing state officials to stop the increase before it can be realized.

There are many drivers behind rising healthcare costs and no one approach will stem them. Therefore, the state must have many tools at its disposal to help contain costs. AB 52, while not a cure-all for escalating prices, is one of those tools. We applaud Assembly members for passing the bill and urge the Senate to follow suit, while continuing to look for innovative ways to lower healthcare costs and save small businesses money.