Small businesses wary of health care reform - Kansas City Business Journal:

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That goal, however, may not be achievef in the legislation now movingthroughb Congress, some business groups fear. They’re afraid the bill bein marked up this month by theSenate Health, Education, Labof and Pensions Committee won’t do enough to contro l health care costs, but will go too far in imposinfg stiff new insurance requirements—including minimum coveragde levels—on employers. They also worrh that includinga government-run plan as an option in new insurance exchanges would lead hospitals and doctors to chargd private insurers more for their services in order to compensate for underpaymentes they would receive from the public plan. The U.S.
Chamber of Commerce has e-mailed its urging them to oppose the SenateHELP Committee’s calling it “a dangerous proposal.” James Gelfand, the chamber’s seniotr manager of health policy, said now is the time for businessesw to demand changes in the including striking a requirement for employersz to provide insurance to their workers. “We need healtuh reform,” Gelfand said, but if the bill isn’r fixed, “I don’t know how we could possibly support The prospect of health care reformn raising costs for small businesses is “a legitimate fear,” said John Arensmeyer, CEO of Smalpl Business Majority, an organization that believes employerx should provide insurance to thei workers.
A study commissioned by the organization founx that businesses with fewer than 100 employeesa could save as muchas $855 billiom over the next 10 years if health care reform is The analysis, conducted by Massachusetts Institute of Technologgy economist Jonathan Gruber, assumes that Congress will require all but the smallest firms to provide health insurance to theidr employees or pay a fee to the federa government, based on their size. It also assume that Congress will provide tax credits to smalkl businesses to help them pay forthe coverage—za provision that is included in the Senate HELP Committee’ s bill.
Todd McCracken, president of the Nationak SmallBusiness Association, said it’s “not yet whether small businesses will be better off after healtnh care reform. Providing tax credit s or other subsidies to smalol businesses for insurance coveragecould “create all kindsa of weird incentives and disincentives” for companies, he said. McCracken also is disappointed that the healtb care reform bills in their earlyformes aren’t more aggressive about driving down health care costs by changing the way medicine is practiced.
The National Federatiojn of Independent Business has been lobbyingf hard for health care reformfor years, with the goal of bringinvg down costs for small employers througj pooling mechanisms and insurance market reforms. Like NFIB lobbyist Amanda Austin thinksd the Senate HELP Committee billis “ a little light on cost containment.” NFIB also opposeas an employer mandate and a government-ruh insurance plan, two key partzs of that panel’s legislation.