mr. speaker , i thank the chairman very much for yielding me this time . 
mr. speaker , it is my understanding that h.r. 525 is supposed to decrease the cost of health insurance for small businesses that can not afford it today . 
well , i support that . 
that is a good goal . 
all of us support that . 
yet , unfortunately , i believe that in this bill that has been undermined a little bit , and my logic is fairly simple . 
as i read it , in section 805 of the bill , it allows an ahp to preempt state-level patient protection laws that prevent cherry-picking against small businesses with sick employees . 
now , that troubles me a great deal . 
look at the bill . 
line 8 through 14 gives us the right , and line 21 through 22 takes it away . 
sure , everybody can buy an ahp . 
it is just if you have anybody sick , you are in serious trouble , because the premium is going to be so high you can not afford it . 
after all , h.r. 525 is supposed to allow small businesses to come together to form large pools and purchase affordable health care through an association . 
that is a good idea . 
this makes sense , since large employers use this concept under erisa to provide employees good rates , regardless of preexisting conditions . 
but in my opinion we , somewhere along the way , allowed this very good idea to be corrupted by a very bad provision , a sort of fly in the buttermilk of health care reform , in the form of section 805 . 
mr. speaker , 49 out of 50 states have instituted at least some patient protections that prevent insurers from using health status to discriminate against patients . 
yet in plain english it appears to me that section 805 allows an ahp to preempt those rating laws . 
this simply makes no sense . 
this is the bottom line : a small business owner in remission from cancer likely can not get health insurance for himself , his family , or his employees if he lives in a state that allows for rating based on health status . 
will that small business owner be able to afford high-quality health insurance from an ahp if h.r. 525 becomes law ? 
based on the language as i understand it , as i believe it to be true , he will not be able to get that insurance . 
now , i believe that if h.r. 525 becomes law , it may even be much harder for that employer to get insurance . 
why is that ? 
because all other employers with healthy employees will be in the ahps . 
i do not believe that is the intention of this bill . 
i hope i am wrong . 
i am going to vote for this bill . 
i am going to vote for it to move it forward , and i dearly hope i am wrong , and i hope that my chairman is right . 
but if time proves my position correct , i want these comments on the record so we will know exactly where to go to fix this when the milk turns sour . 
