Summary: In late September 1993, anticipating strong interest in the administration's health care reform proposal, the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Commerce Department jointly produced a brochure describing how health insurance would be provided and what role small employers would play in financing insurance for their workers under the proposed Health Security Act. GAO concludes that SBA did not violate the statutory prohibition on lobbying by preparing and distributing the brochure. The brochure did not unlawfully lobby for the President's plan because it did not urge businesses to contact Members of Congress to support the plan. Furthermore, SBA has the authority under the Small Business Act to publish and distribute the brochure. When SBA distributed copies of the brochure to the Democratic National Committee (DNC)--one of many recipients of the document--it did not follow customary government procedures for distributing large quantities of agency publications. Government agencies usually do not give large quantities of free publications to private sector organizations; however, SBA initially gave the DNC 10,000 free copies of the brochure. DNC officials later paid SBA $5,000 for copies of the brochure.
