Congressman Tony Cardenas of California applauded the Senate's unanimous passage of the Protecting Affordable Coverage for Employees (PACE) Act on Thursday which will protect small business owners from health insurance rate hikes under the Affordable Care Act.

The PACE Act, which works to protect smaller employers from increased regulations while granting their employees the option to keep their current health insurance plans, was introduced by the Democratic lawmaker and Republican Rep. Brett Guthrie back in March.

The bipartisan bill then passed through the House of Representatives on Monday before being approved in the Senate. Now it is set to go into law once it is signed by President Barack Obama.

"Bipartisanship is a must, if we are going to make the Affordable Care Act a better law and help the American people, particularly small businesses," said Cárdenas, who is a member of the Health Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, in a statement sent to Latin Post.

"This law will help our economy, it will create certainty for small business owners and it will hopefully stop any rate increase for employees," the Mexican-American official said.

Although the small group market is currently defined as 1-50 employees, that definition is set to expand to 1-100 employees on Jan. 1, 2016. The new regulations would then prevent employers with 51-100 employees from keeping their current health care plans. Plus, the new mandates would cause health care plan rates to dramatically increase.

However, the PACE Act (or H.R. 1624) will prevent this from happening by allowing states to decide to maintain the definition of the small group markets as employers with 1-50 employees.

The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce also urged Rep. Guthrie to take legislative action to correct the mandate to prevent the cost of health insurance premiums from drastically increasing for small business owners.

"It is in the best interest of Kentucky employers and their employees that states determine the definition of their small group market," wrote Dave Adkisson, president and chief executive officer of the Kentucky chamber, in a letter, according to Bowling Green Daily News.

"By repealing the ACA mandated expansion and returning to the state determination model will allow flexibility for employers and ensure a broad array of coverage options and mitigate premium increases."