By Kevin Lavery, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – The law relaxes the requirements for small businesses that band together to purchase health insurance as a group.
It reduces the number of eligible members in association health plans from 100 to 50.
Gov. Blunt says the expansion lessens the burden on taxpayers because it increases preventative care.
"Everybody in the state of Missouri has access to health care," Blunt said. "Unfortunately, for many people, that access is in an emergency room. We want to focus on prevention and when you have a traditional health insurance plan, you're going to have access to those prevention tools.
The legislation passed unanimously out of both the Missouri House and Senate.
Earlier this year, a federal plan to create association health plans failed in Congress.