Reply #21: ALOA l will be going to Byrd and other dems for a vote on S1955 by May

[caligirl]

http://www.aloa.org/legislation/UrgentNotice.php

SENATE COMMITTEE APPROVES ASSOCIATION HEALTH PLANS ACT!

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee today approved S. 1955, Senator Enzi's health reform legislation, on a straight party line vote of 11-9, with all committee Republicans supporting and all Democrats opposing. The bill is now reported to the full Senate, where it will be up to Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) to schedule it for floor debate and a full Senate vote. Senate sources indicate that a likely time-frame for Senate floor consideration of S. 1955 is early May.

Today's mark-up was not much different in general from what occurred in the HELP Committee last week. There were 16 amendments offered by Democrats, most of which attempted to ensure that various state mandated benefit laws would not be preempted by the Enzi bill. All amendments were defeated, some on a straight party line vote of 9-11, others on a vote of 10-10 (an amendment receiving a tie vote fails), with Republican Senator DeWine (R-OH) voting with the Democrats. As such, the bill was approved without any changes from the revised version of the bill offered by Enzi last week.

This is the first time ever that a Senate committee has approved any legislation that contains Association Health Plan components! Thus, it is a major step forward towards the goal of enacting legislation to provide small and mid-sized businesses with new health benefit options through association-sponsored health plans! Please take this opportunity to thank all the HELP Committee Republicans with whom you have have had contact for their strong support of this legislation.

In the coming weeks we will be preparing for Senate floor debate and approval. Most significantly, it will be necessary to get greater Democratic support for the bill to be approved by the Senate. Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) has cosponsored Enzi's bill, and Senator Robert Byrd cosponsored the original AHP bill (S. 406), so we will need to build on this and obtain more Democratic support to get the bill through the Senate.


This is from Associated Locksmiths of America http://www.aloa.org/legislation/


Their congressional locator map and phone numbers
http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/index.htm