Tell Your Senator Builders Can’t Afford Increased Health Insurance Costs

February 11, 2021

Tell your Senator builders can’t afford increased health insurance costs and to VOTE NO on SB 5149!

The Senate Health & Long Term Care Committee votes tomorrow (Friday, Feb. 12) at 8 a.m. on SB 5149 “Funding Foundational Public Health Services.” SB 5149 adds a $3.25 per person charge each month on health insurance policies in Washington state.

Increasing the cost of health insurance is a bad idea.

SB 5149 penalizes struggling individuals, families and small businesses who have already made sacrifices to provide and maintain private health insurance through the pandemic.

Individuals and small businesses already pay a 2% premium tax of roughly $9 per enrollee per month. Union health trusts and large self-insured employers do not pay this tax. 

If the bill passes, individuals and small businesses would pay an even higher premium:

• $12.25 per person per month;
• $147 per person per year; and
• $588 per year for a family of four.

That’s on top of the roughly $6,000/year they already pay for health insurance for each person every year.

Builders can’t afford higher employee costs on the heels of unemployment insurance increases, business slowdowns and increased safety costs.

Tell legislators to fund public health out of the state’s general fund.

Don’t raise taxes on people who have done the right thing by maintaining health insurance coverage for themselves, their families and their employees.

Click Here to Tell Your Senator You Can’t Afford Increased Health Insurance Costs