Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson today supported passage of H.R. 3522, the Employee Health Care Protection Act.  This bill would allow employees to keep their work sponsored health plans by ensuring that existing group health plans can continue to be sold through 2019.  It passed the House 247 to 167.

Last year, millions of plans in the individual insurance market were cancelled due to Obamacare mandates.  Now, as many as 50 million workers with full coverage could face cancellation or disruption because their work sponsored plans would not meet new minimal essential coverage requirements.

H.R. 3522 ensures that group health plans that were offered in 2013 remain available and allows small businesses and their employees to purchase these plans regardless of whether they were on them in 2013.  The Administration has provided limited relief for group plans that do not comply with Obamacare, but that relief only lasts through 2016. This bill would extend that opportunity to those not previously on such plans, and add three years of reprieve.

The bill expands on the “Keep Your Health Plan Act of 2013,” which applied to individual market plans, and allowed individuals to keep their plans.  That bill passed the House late last year.

“The President repeatedly promised that if Americans liked their health plans, they could keep them,” Said Congressman Simpson. “We now know that is not true. This bill would allow the Administration to start making good on that promise and also allow for more affordable coverage options to remain available to more Americans.”

The bill now moves to the Senate for consideration.