Small businesses wary of health care reform - The Business Journal of Milwaukee:

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That goal, however, may not be achieved in the legislatiom now movingthrough Congress, some business groups fear. They’re afraid the bill being marked up this monthn by theSenate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee won’t do enough to controkl health care costs, but will go too far in imposing stiff new insurancd requirements—including minimum coverage levels—on employers. They also worry that includinbga government-run plan as an option in new insurancr exchanges would lead hospitals and doctorw to charge private insurers more for theier services in order to compensate for underpayments they woulsd receive from the public plan. The U.S.
Chambee of Commerce has e-mailed its members, urging them to opposr the SenateHELP Committee’s bill, calling it “aw dangerous proposal.” James Gelfand, the chamber’s senio r manager of health said now is the time for businessesz to demand changes in the including striking a requiremenyt for employers to provide insurance to their “We need health reform,” Gelfand said, but if the bill isn’t fixed, “I don’t know how we could possibly supporg it.
” The prospect of health care reform raising costs for small businesses is “a legitimate fear,” said John Arensmeyer, CEO of Smalkl Business Majority, an organization that believes employers shoulfd provide insurance to their workers. A studyg commissioned by the organization found that businesses with fewer than 100 employees could save as muchas $855 billion over the next 10 years if healtu care reform is enacted.
The analysis, conductedx by Massachusetts Institute of Technology economisftJonathan Gruber, assumes that Congresx will require all but the smallest firms to provide health insurance to their employeezs or pay a fee to the federal government, based on theitr size. It also assumes that Congress will provide tax credits to smallk businesses to help them pay forthe coverage—sa provision that is included in the Senate HELP Committee’s bill. Todd president of the National SmallBusiness Association, said it’as “not yet clear” whether smal l businesses will be better off after healt care reform.
Providing tax creditws or other subsidies to small businesses for insurance coveragecould “create all kinds of weir incentives and disincentives” for companies, he McCracken also is disappointedr that the health care refornm bills in their early forms aren’t more aggressive abouty driving down health care costs by changing the way medicined is practiced. The National Federation of Independenyt Business has been lobbying hard for healthb care reformfor years, with the goal of bringing down costds for small employers through pooling mechanism s and insurance market reforms.
Like McCracken, NFIB lobbyist Amanda Austij thinks the Senate HELP Committee billis “a littled light on cost containment.” NFIB also opposes an employet mandate and a government-run insurancr plan, two key parts of that panel’s legislation.