Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, opened a hearing July 16 focused on proposals intended to expand access to portable benefits for independent contractors while preserving their flexibility.

The bills under discussion — described at the hearing as the Unlocking Benefits for Independent Workers Act, the Modern Worker Empowerment Act and related proposals — would create a federal safe harbor intended to let companies offer benefits to contractors without triggering employee misclassification claims. Supporters said the measures would modernize nearly century‑old labor rules and let freelancers, gig workers and small businesses access group rates and retirement options.

"Because he worked independently, he had that freedom to move place to place without losing a source of income," Cassidy said, describing why flexible work arrangements matter to many Americans.

The hearing split sharply along ideological and sector lines. Patrice Onwuka, director of the Center for Economic Opportunity at the Independent Women's Forum, told the committee that portable benefits and a harmonized independent‑contractor test would preserve flexibility while allowing contractors to access health coverage and retirement accounts. "No worker should be forced into a traditional 9 to 5 job," Onwuka testified.

Kim Cavin, a longtime freelancer and co‑founder of Fight for Freelancers, described economic harm she attributes to broad reclassification efforts such as California's Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5). "When New Jersey tried to copy AB5, some friends and I created a coalition called Fight for Freelancers," Cavin said. She told senators that sweeping reclassification reduced self‑employment in affected professions and that federal safe harbors would protect freelancers' ability to work independently.

Kev Coleman, a research fellow at Paragon Health Institute, urged the committee to consider association health plans (AHPs) and pooling arrangements that can lower premiums by aggregating independent workers with small employers. "An association health plan is a legal instrument by which a group of businesses can band together and cooperatively sponsor a single health plan," Coleman told the panel, citing prior periods when expanded AHP access reportedly produced savings.

Opponents warned the safe‑harbor approach could widen employer misclassification and weaken workers' access to wage and labor protections. "These bills are not about giving workers the freedom to work. These bills are about giving corporations the freedom to deny workers the right to form a union," Senator Bernie Sanders (I‑Vt.), the committee's ranking member, said in opening remarks. Tim Driscoll, president of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craft Workers, said misclassification is "rampant" in construction and predicted the bills would accelerate a "race to the bottom." "These would greatly harm workers," Driscoll told senators.

Several senators pressed practical questions about program design: how portable plans would protect participants if a provider failed, whether pooled plans could avoid becoming "association junk" plans that lack adequate benefits, and how AHPs would avoid adverse selection. Senators also flagged interaction with federal policy changes: some warned that other legislative actions reducing coverage or premium subsidies would change the universe of insured and uninsured people and could push costs onto employer plans.

Witnesses and senators cited state efforts as test cases. Cassidy and multiple witnesses pointed to state pilot programs in Utah, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Delaware as examples of portable‑benefits experimentation. Buhari‑style claims about AB5's effects were raised repeatedly as evidence of risks from mass reclassification.

The committee did not vote on legislation at the hearing. Senators and witnesses invited further technical work on benefit design, regulatory authority and consumer protections while disagreeing on whether a federal safe harbor should be part of that work.

Without consensus at the hearing, senators signaled follow‑up: lawmakers asked for more data on premium impacts, example program contracts, and protections to ensure portability does not become an avenue for employers to escape wage or safety laws.