Wisconsin Co-ops Testify
on National Health Care Reform
MADISON, Wis. (April 23, 2009) – Cooperative Network President and CEO Bill Oemichen testified today on national health care reform before the Committee on Education and Labor’s Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives. Oemichen testified on behalf of the Alliance for Employee Benefit Cooperatives in support of federal reforms that would allow small employers, their employees, and their families to gain greater access to affordable, quality health insurance coverage through the formation of cooperatives.
“We all know that a critical piece of the health care puzzle is the need to expand coverage among small businesses and their employees,” said Oemichen. “Employee benefit cooperatives, a private-sector solution designed to meet this need, would level the playing field for small businesses.”
An employee benefit cooperative would provide health care and other benefits to the employees of its shareholder-members. Small employers would join a cooperative that would be the aggregating vehicle used to purchase and deliver health insurance benefits to the employees of its member businesses.
Oemichen points out the success of Wisconsin health care co-ops as examples of how the cooperative model can succeed.
“Our cooperative model is currently providing health insurance coverage to farmers and agribusinesses via the Farmers’ Health Cooperative of Wisconsin which contracted with Aetna to begin providing coverage in April of 2007,” said Oemichen. “The cooperative has successfully used the power of group purchasing to negotiate low renewal rate increases of less than 10 percent each year, provide first-dollar coverage of preventive care up to the first $500, and ensure that farm-related accidents are covered by health insurance.”
At the hearing, members of Congress from Illinois, Minnesota, Tennessee and New Jersey expressed interest in pursuing the use of cooperatives to provide access to affordable quality health insurance.
For more information about the Alliance for Employee Benefit Cooperatives visit their website at www.aebc.coop.
Cooperative Network serves more than 600 member-cooperatives, owned by more than 6.3 million Wisconsin and Minnesota residents, by providing government relations, education, marketing, and technical services for a wide variety of cooperatives including farm supply, health, dairy marketing, consumer, financial, livestock marketing, telecommunications, electric, housing, insurance, worker-owned cooperatives, and more.
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