AH&LA applauds White House for Affordable Care Act fix that will prevent premium increases for small businesses

Washington, D.C., 2015-10-12 — /Travel PR News/ — As a member of the 50-100 Coalition, which supports small businesses and works to protect affordable coverage for employees, the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) applauds the White House for repairing a flaw in the Affordable Care Act that will prevent premium increases for small businesses. On Wednesday, President Obama signed the bipartisan “Protecting Affordable Coverage for Employees (PACE) Act” into law, which allows states to keep the current definition of a small group market as 50 or fewer employees or expand the definition of the small group market to include groups up to 100 employees. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had also recently scored the PACE Act as saving $400 million over 10 years.

“With 92 percent of lodging properties in the United States owned by franchisees and small businesses, we applaud the swift action by both chambers of Congress and the White House to sign this important bill into law,” said AH&LA’s Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Vanessa Sinders. “The law will help ensure small businesses avoid drastically higher premiums and keep their health plans, which provides the much-needed relief and certainty for these businesses to effectively operate and succeed.”

The 50-100 Coalition, of which AH&LA is a member of, has been working with House and Senate members to ensure passage of this important bill. To learn more about the 50-100 Coalition and the PACE Act, please click here.

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Serving the hospitality industry for more than a century, the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) is the sole national association representing all segments of the 1.9 million-employee U.S. lodging industry, including hotel owners, REITs, chains, franchisees, management companies, independent properties, state hotel associations, and industry suppliers. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., AH&LA provides focused advocacy, communications support, and educational resources for an industry of more than 53,000 properties generating $176 billion in annual sales from 5 million guestrooms.