NOBODY will benefit more from the health care reform bill, HR 3200, now making its way through the House of Representatives than the commonwealth’s small businesses.
Yet some of the official lobbyists for small business, such as the National Federation of Independent Businesses, are fighting to block it.
The NFIB doesn’t actually represent most small businesses in the country. And what’s worse—this is the dirty little secret of health-care lobbying— the leaders of this and other business advocacy organizations are fighting insurance reform out of their own self-interest, not out of a concern for their own members.
The NFIB provides health insurance to their members. One of the central reforms contained in the bill—an option for small businesses to purchase affordable health insurance from a public plan—may cut into their profits.
So the NFIB hides its own self-interest behind a campaign that complains that under HR 3220 small businesses will be required to provide health insurance to their employees or pay a tax on wages.
What they don’t acknowledge, however, is that most owners of small businesses want to provide health insurance for their employees both because it’s the right thing to do and because they know that it is good business sense.
No worker wants to stay in a job without health insurance. If businesses can provide health insurance, employees turn over less frequently. That helps because it takes time for our employees to learn to do their jobs well.
In addition, the longer workers stay, the less time is spent training their replacements, which saves money, too. And employees with health insurance are less frequently absent from work due to illness.
Right now small business owners that provide health insurance are triply penalized. They pay premiums at much higher rates than large businesses. They are put at a disadvantage when their competitors don’t provide health insurance for their employees. And, to add insult to injury, because the costs of health care for the uninsured is passed through to those who have health insurance, they also pay some of the cost of providing health care to the employees of their competitors who don’t provide health insurance.
HR 3200 helps small business secure affordable health insurance both directly and indirectly
First, it will save them money by regulating the insurance market. Today insurers make money not by spreading the risk of illness, but by denying affordable coverage to those who most need it. That raises insurance rates for small businesses and individuals to unaffordable levels. If, for example, a small business with five or 10 employees hires an individual with a pre-existing medical condition, its insurance rates will skyrocket. The same thing can happen if many of those employees are women of childbearing years. HR 3200 prohibits the practice of medical underwriting and premium discrimination on the basis of sex and it strictly limits variation in premiums on the basis of age as well.
These regulations benefit everyone, but especially the small businesses and individuals.
The public health insurance option will also reduce costs by creating the competition in the health insurance market that is sorely lacking today.
And, for the smallest businesses, HR 3200 provides subsidies that make health insurance affordable.
The bill will have the indirect benefits for small businesses as well.
Guaranteeing insurance for everyone will stop the costs of uncompensated care from being passed on to those who have insurance.
And the employer mandate will enable businesses that provide or want to provide health insurance to their employees to do so without putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage.
Under HR 3200, the vast majority of small businesses will, for the first time, be able to provide affordable health insurance to their employees. And, the relatively few that still cannot do so, will pay a low payroll tax that starts at only 2% for the smallest businesses—in most cases, less than the cost of providing health care. Small businesses will benefit because their employees will be able to purchase subsidized insurance at rates they can afford.
Moreover, under HR 3200, the taxes that pay for these subsidies will not fall on small business owners unless their incomes are extremely high. An overwhelmingly small percentage of small busineses—95.9%— will see no tax increase.
The health reform bill under consideration this week has been designed to help middle class Americans and small businesses. Now is the time small business owners stand up and speak out and drown out the voices of those who claim to speak in their name while only standing up for themselves.