Contact:                                  
Molly Brogan
202-552-2904
press@nsba.biz

 

Washington, D.C. - The U.S. House of Representatives passed their health care overhaul legislation late Saturday night by a vote of 220-215. Even though NSBA strongly supports health care reform as a needed step to address the health insurance woes faced by so many small businesses, not just any reform will do. Despite addressing some of the policy concerns impacting small business over the last few months, the House-passed bill is still too far off the mark to gain the support of NSBA.

“We don't think this is the right reform for America's small-business owners or their millions of employees,” stated NSBA President Todd McCracken. “There are some serious problems with the bill, including too little cost-containment and the long-term implications of the employer mandate and the surcharge tax--neither of which were indexed for inflation and will increasingly burden small businesses.”

NSBA’s primary concerns with H.R. 3962 include: the combination of using employer mandates and surcharge taxes on high-end incomes as a new revenue stream to finance reform; creating a public health insurance option without full knowledge of its impact on the private insurance market; instituting oppressive new corporate information reporting requirements; failing to include the Equity for our Nation’s Self-Employed Act; and implementing insufficient health care cost-reduction and containment provisions. These key problems have led us to conclude that H.R. 3962 is not the right answer for small business.

Health care reform has dominated the member-driven legislative priority agenda at NSBA for years. For this reason, NSBA has been engaged in health care policy development for decades, and in 2004 published Small Business Health Care Reform—A Long-Term Solution for All. This proposal for broad reform of the health care system seeks to achieve universal coverage, focus on individual responsibility and empowerment, the creation of the right market-based incentives, and a relentless focus on improving quality while driving out unnecessary, wasteful, and harmful care. NSBA has been persistent in outlining these goals over the years, and particularly over the last several months.

With the passage of H.R. 3962, the attention now turns to the Senate where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D – Nev.) is waiting on budget analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Once Reid gets CBO’s breakdown of the various provisions, he expects to introduce legislation.

NSBA has invested extraordinary time and resources into the health care reform debate. While the H.R. 3962 fell short of the needs of our nation’s small businesses, there is still opportunity to right the legislation. NSBA is fully engaged in Senate deliberations with the expectation that Sen. Reid’s proposal will set the bar for a final bill.

Since 1937, NSBA has advocated on behalf of America's entrepreneurs. A staunchly nonpartisan organization, NSBA reaches more than 150,000 small businesses nationwide and is proud to be the nation's first small-business advocacy organization. For more information, please visit www.nsba.biz.

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