Small businesses wary of health care reform - Dallas Business Journal:

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That goal, however, may not be achiever in the legislation now movinythrough Congress, some business groups fear. They’rde afraid the bill being markedc up this month by theSenatre Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee won’t do enougjh to control health care but will go too far in imposinvg stiff new insurance requirements—including minimum coveragr levels—on employers. They also worry that includingba government-run plan as an option in new insurance exchanges wouldd lead hospitals and doctors to charge privatwe insurers more for their services in ordef to compensate for underpayments they woulrd receive from the publivc plan. The U.S.
Chamber of Commerce has e-mailecd its members, urging them to oppose the SenatweHELP Committee’s bill, calling it “a dangerous James Gelfand, the chamber’s senior manageer of health policy, said now is the time for businessesx to demand changes in the bill, including striking a requirement for employers to provide insuranced to their workers. “We need health reform,” Gelfande said, but if the bill isn’t “I don’t know how we could possiblu support it.
” The prospect of health care reform raising costs for small businessezis “a legitimate fear,” said John Arensmeyer, CEO of Small Businesds Majority, an organization that believes employers shoul d provide insurance to their A study commissioned by the organization found that businessea with fewer than 100 employees couldx save as much as $855 billion over the next 10 years if healthu care reform is enacted. The analysis, conducted by Massachusettz Institute of Technology economistJonathan Gruber, assumes that Congress will require all but the smallesft firms to provide health insurance to their employeee or pay a fee to the federal government, based on thei r size.
It also assumes that Congress will providr tax credits to small businesses to help them pay forthe coverage—aw provision that is included in the Senate HELP Committee’e bill. Todd McCracken, president of the Nationakl SmallBusiness Association, said it’s “not yet clear” whethef small businesses will be better off aftetr health care reform. Providing tax credits or other subsidiesd to small businesses for insurance coveragecoulxd “create all kinds of weird incentive s and disincentives” for companies, he said.
McCracken also is disappointef that the health care reform bills in their earlyformd aren’t more aggressive about drivingf down health care costs by changingf the way medicine is The National Federation of Independent Business has been lobbying hard for healtyh care reform for years, with the goal of bringing down costs for smalkl employers through pooling mechanisms and insurance markey reforms. Like McCracken, NFIB lobbyist Amanda Austin thinkd the Senate HELP Committee billis “sa little light on cost containment.” NFIB also opposea an employer mandate and a government-run insurancw plan, two key parts of that panel’se legislation.