Fixing problems in how healthcare services are delivered to Americans has been a top priority of small business for over 10-years.  I remember working at the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) in the late 1990's when concerns over healthcare rose above concerns with taxes as NFIB's highest priority issue.  After the Senate confirmed me as Chief Counsel for Advocacy, I met with hundreds of entrepreneurs who wanted to provide their employees with health insurance, but could not afford it.  During the last dozen years, small businesses continually voiced their concerns and NFIB, the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE), and other small business advocacy organizations engaged in a constructive effort to fix a broken healthcare system. 

Several ideas emerged from the dialogue that occurred between small employers who wanted to provide healthcare coverage for their employees and policy leaders in Washington.  A desire for lower cost options resulted in the creation of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs).  Those high-deductible plans were not a cure-all for the woes of healthcare.  Rather, they provided a new option for portions of the workforce who otherwise would be ignored by health insurance. 

Another idea that emerged was the concept of small business owners joining together across state lines for better buying power.  This option was already available to labor unions and large self-insured corporations and quickly gained the support of Republicans and Democrats who saw the common-sense logic of creating "association health plans." 

There are more ideas that were supported by a broad swatch of Republicans and Democrats, like pushing for electronic healthcare records and ensuring that the self-employed can deduct their healthcare premiums the same way CEOs of large corporations do.  So, what happened to bi-partisan ideas to fix parts of a broken health care system?  It looks like the Partisan Pac Man (or, maybe "Ms. Pac-Man") swallowed up the bi-partisan fixes and replaced them with a massive expansion of the government's role in providing health care for Americans. 

It is disappointing that an area with such broad agreement over the need for reform turned into a divisive partisan fight.  I pray that we did not replace a broken system with a different broken system.  As we start to learn about what is actually in this new law, I hope that legislators will coalesce around areas of agreement during future legislative efforts to improve healthcare in the United States.

Tom Sullivan is an attorney with the law firm of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough where he runs the Small Business Coalition for Regulatory Relief.