Congressman Simpson flags off big regulations 

Here’s a red flag warning that’s coming from Congressman Mike Simpson to help small business owners by keeping unnecessary regulations at bay. Simpson, a Republican, along with John Alder, D-N.J., and Paul Broun, R-Ga., put together a bill that would help protect small businesses and small health care practices from federal regulations. The bill will exempt them from FTC Red Flags Regulations that would force them to develop and implement an unnecessary identity theft program.

“It is obvious that physicians and dentists are not creditors, and they should not be forced to spend hundreds of dollars to comply with this needless regulation.  They don’t require full payment at the time of service because they first bill the insurance company, then they bill the patient for the remainder,” Simpson stated in a release.

This bipartisan legislation amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act to provide for an exclusion from Red Flags guidelines for health care practices and law and accounting firms with 20 or fewer employees. In addition, it would create a system where the FTC has some flexibility to waive implementation of the regulations for other industries.

Simpson said, “Health care is expensive enough; we don’t need to create needless rules to increase costs even more.”

He said the Federal Trade Commission went beyond the intent of Congress by considering non-financial services-related industries to be “creditors” under the FAIR and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003. Its ruling would force thousands of small businesses to comply with burdensome, expensive regulations by forcing them to develop and implement an identity theft program.

The bipartisan Adler/Simpson/Broun bill will exempt certain health care practices and law and accounting firms from the FTC’s red flag guidelines, the release states.  In addition, it would create a system where the FTC has some flexibility to waive implementation of the regulations for other industries.  The House is expected to pass the bill tonight.

If a bill to exempt small businesses is not signed into law, the regulation will go into effect on November 1.

NEW! Online only subscription. 24/7 access to premium online subscriber content for only $79.00 a year!
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP TODAY!

Comments are closed.