Senate HELP Committee to Explore Toll of High Health Costs on Small Businesses

WASHINGTON, DC – Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, announced today that the Committee will hold a hearing entitled “Increasing Health Costs Facing Small Businesses.” The hearing will explore the toll high health care costs take on America’s small businesses, how those costs affect their ability to compete and how this burden can be reduced. The Committee will meet in open session on Tuesday, November 3rd at 2:30 p.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The hearing will also be wecast at http://help.senate.gov/Hearings.html.

Witnesses for the proceeding include:

Art Cullen, Editor, The Storm Lake Times, Storm Lake, IA

Walter Rowen, President, Susquehanna Glass Company, Columbia, PA

Sandy Praeger, Commissioner, Kansas Department of Insurance, Topeka, KS

Doug Holtz-Eakin, President, DHE Consulting, LLC, and Fellow, Manhattan Institute, Arlington, VA

Karen Bender, Actuary, Oliver Wyman, Milwaukee, WI

Jonathan Gruber, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics, Cambridge, MA