User:Kfsimerau/Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

William Reynolds Archer Jr. (Bill Archer) is the sponsor of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Bill Archer, a republican from Texas, served from 1971-2001 in the House of Representatives. Archer served the 7th district of Texas which covers western Harris county. Bill Archer was fiscally and socially conservative. Archer was the Ways and Means Committee Chairman which was the House Committee considered for the act. The Ways and Means Committee is the chief tax-writing committee of the United States House of Representatives and thus gives a little insight as to why Archer would sponsor the act. By 1996, most of congress was in agreement that the system and privacy rights of citizens were in danger and there needed to be a change in health care law. A few years after HIPAA was signed into law, Archer retired.

Article Draft
Intro:

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA or the Kennedy–Kassebaum Act) is a United States federal statute enacted by the 104th United States Congress and was a bipartisan effort. The law was signed by President Bill Clinton on August 21, 1996.

Title I: Health Care Access, Portability, and Renewability
Title I of HIPAA regulates the availability and breadth of group health plans and certain individual health insurance policies. It amended the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the Public Health Service Act, and the Internal Revenue Code. Furthermore, Title I addresses the issue of "job lock" which is the inability for an employee to leave their job because they would lose their health coverage. To combat the job lock issue, the Title protects health insurance coverage for workers and their families if they lose or change their jobs.

Legislative information
In 1994, President Clinton had big ambitions to renovate the state of the nation's health care. Despite his efforts to revamp the system, he did not receive the support he needed at the time. The Congressional Quarterly Almanac of 1996 explains how two senators, Nancy Kassebaum (R-KS) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) came together and created a bill called the Health Insurance Reform Act of 1995 or more known as the Kassebaum- Kennedy Bill. This bill in its originality was stalled despite making it out of the senate. Despite this, Clinton pushed harder for his ambitions and eventually in 1996 after the state of the union address, there was some headway as it resulted in bipartisan cooperation. After much debate and negotiation, there was a shift in momentum once a “compromise between Kennedy and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer ” was accepted after alterations were made of the original Kassebaum- Kennedy Bill. . Soon after this, the bill was signed into law by President Clinton and was named Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).