• NASE Sponsors Women Entrepreneurship Regional Summits

• Focus on Health Coverage for the Uninsured

• LEGISLATIVE ALERT: National Small Business Regulatory Assistance Act Stalled in Senate

• State Watch: Alaska Increases Minimum Wage

NASE Sponsors Women Entrepreneurship Regional Summits

Register Now for the July 22nd Event in Nashville, TN

The NASE is helping the Department of Labor, the Bush Administration and Members of Congress bring regional summits on women entrepreneurship to your area. The free day-long conferences will focus on access to capital, developing your business, health care, procurement and regional opportunities and contacts. The first event is in two weeks in Nashville, TN. Check out www.nase.org/news/summits.asp for more information on all the summits.
 

Focus on Health Coverage for the Uninsured

The National Association for the Self-Employed continues to work on your behalf by keeping Congress focused on issues affecting you, especially health care reform. The NASE distributed its recent report, “Affordability in Health Care: Trends in American Micro-Business” to every Member of Congress as a way to keep the issue in front of them. Click here to read more on Congress' reaction.

Health care has been a hot topic on Capitol Hill lately. Just two weeks ago the House of Representatives passed the Medicare prescription bill. The House has now turned its attention to the matter of the uninsured.

This week, the House Education and the Workforce Committee held a hearing to discuss solutions to the growing problem. In his opening statement, committee chairman Sam Thomas (R-TX) lamented that small businesses “often have access only to very expensive health coverage. By contrast,” he continued, “their large business counterparts bargain for health care with the clout of a much bigger group.”

Armed with statistics from the NASE survey, Rep. Ernie Fletcher (R-KY) presented the merits of Association Health Plans, which he advocates in the Small Business Health Fairness Act (H.R. 1774). Fletcher told the committee, “The NASE sponsored study profiles the dramatic challenges faced by the self-employed and micro-businesses in accessing affordable health insurance.”

Dr. Mark McClellan, a member of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors, also testified at the hearing. He detailed the president’s comprehensive health care agenda designed to improve access to affordable health care, which includes AHPs, health insurance credits and Medical Savings Accounts. McClellan told the committee, “The key to increasing health insurance coverage is addressing the problems that are making insurance less available, less efficient and less affordable for many Americans, while encouraging flexibility and innovation in insurance coverage to keep (up) with changes in medical care.”

According to the NASE survey, 70 percent of respondents do not offer any health insurance coverage to their employees. U.S. Census figures show that more than 24 million, or 60 percent, of the uninsured have a family head that is self-employed or working in a firm with fewer than 100 employees.

The NASE continues to work on this vital issue. Meanwhile, you can view a Web cast of the hearing. Click here.
 

LEGISLATIVE ALERT: National Small Business Regulatory Assistance Act Stalled in Senate

The NASE is constantly working to reduce the regulatory burdens placed on micro-businesses and has its eye on an important piece of legislation that would provide compliance counseling to micro-businesses. The bill is the National Small Business Regulatory Assistance Act of 2002 (S. 2483 and
S. 2455), introduced by Senator Max Cleland (D-GA) and Senator John Ensign (R-NV) respectively.

Currently the bill is stalled in the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. It would establish a pilot program at the Small Business Administration (SBA) to give grants to Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) in various states. The grants would allow SBDCs to provide regulatory compliance counseling to small businesses. The bill would also expand the role of SBDCs to include:

• Training and education in regulatory compliance

• Confidential, free-of-charge regulatory compliance counseling

• Technical assistance and referral to experts for more complicated compliance issues.

In addition to the assistance, each state center would be required to submit quarterly reports on data collected regarding the number of small businesses assisted and the nature of the concerns of those businesses.

Similar legislation, H.R. 203, sponsored by Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY), was passed in the House of Representatives last year. This legislation will greatly assist micro-business owners and the self-employed in dealing with onerous federal regulations. Please go to the NASE Legislative Action Center and ask your Senator to support the National Small Business Regulatory Assistance Act of 2002.
 

State Watch: Alaska Increases Minimum Wage

With a pending debate in Washington on the minimum wage, the forty-ninth state has taken matters into its own hands. Last week Alaska’s Gov. Tony Knowles (D) signed a measure that would increase the state’s minimum wage to $7.15 (the federal minimum wage is $5.15 per hour). The bill also ties wage increases to the consumer price index, requiring it to increase as inflation rises.

As reported in last week’s Washington Watch, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) is likely to push for a federal minimum wage increase before the end of this session.

According to the NASE’s Web poll last month, 52 percent of respondents supported raising the minimum wage and 39 percent opposed it. The NASE wants you to weigh in on the issue – visit the Legislative Action Center and tell your Members of Congress how you feel about an increase in the minimum wage.

Do any of these issues affect you? Visit the NASE's Legislative Action Center  and "Tell Your Small Business Story." This will help the NASE understand - on a personal level - how key legislative issues are affecting your business and your bottom line.

For more information about any of the articles in Washington Watch, contact Maureen Petron, NASE public affairs manager, at (202) 466-2100 or mpetron@nase.org.