1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Association Health Plans Act of 2019 . 2. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) Association health plans allow small businesses to band together on a regional or national basis and leverage their combined power to obtain the health benefits they want and need, at a price they can afford. (2) Small business owners have experienced average premium decreases of up to 29 percent under an association health plan. (3) Association health plans are governed under the same rules that apply to employer-sponsored insurance arrangements for large employers utilized by more than 160,000,000 Americans. (4) Important consumer protections established on a bipartisan basis under the Employee Retirement and Income Security Act of 1974, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, and the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 apply to association health plans. (5) Association health plans comply with requirements for large employer health plans under the Public Health Service Act, as amended by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. (6) Association health plans cannot limit plan eligibility on the basis of medical history, health status, claims experience, or genetic information. (7) Fully-insured association health plans must comply with State benefit mandates. (8) Self-insured association health plans are subject to State multiple-employer welfare arrangement laws. (9) The Secretary of Labor used its rulemaking authority to issue a final rule on June 21, 2018, to expand access to association health plans for American small businesses and working families, including self-employed business owners. (10) The Secretary of Labor required association health plans formed under the final rule to comply with even stronger nondiscrimination protections than the nondiscrimination protections under Federal law prior to the final rule. (11) On March 28, 2019, a Federal district judge vacated the Secretary of Labor’s final rule, threatening to