Health care reform could prove costly for some businesses - bizjournals:

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But some business groups fear that this goal mighrt not be achieved in the legislation now movinvgthrough Congress. They’re afrais the bill being marked up this month by theSenate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee won’t do enough to control healtg care costs and that it will go too far in imposingy stiff new insurance requirements — including minimum coverage levelw — on employers. They also worrt that includinga government-run plan as an optionj in new insurance exchanges would lead hospitals and doctorsa to charge private insurers more for their services to compensate for underpaymentsw they would receive from the public plan.
The has e-mailedx its members, urging them to oppose the SenateHELP Committee’s bill, calling it “a dangerous proposal.” James Gelfand, the chamber’s seniotr manager of health policy, said he is optimistixc that the Senate ultimately won’t go alongb with a provision that calls for a government-appointed boarx to decide what level of benefits must be includedf in insurance plans. If that provision is not changed, many employer s likely would face higher insurance costs because senators look atthe benefits-rich plan now offerecd to federal employees as the “golsd standard” for health care reform, he said.
Now is the time for businessesa to demand changes in the including striking a requirement for employerx to provide insurance totheir workers, he said. Many small businesse s simply can’t afford that, the chamber contends. “Wwe need health reform,” Gelfand said. But if the bill isn’f fixed, “I don’t know how we could possibly support it.” Business groupa are hoping the Senate Financse Committee will producelegislationj that’s friendlier to employers.
The prospect of healty care reform raising costs for small businesseswis “a legitimate fear,” said John CEO of Small Business Majority, an organization that believe s employers should provide insurance to their But if done health care reform woulsd save small businesses money, he A study commissioned by the organization founds that businesses with fewer than 100 employees could save as much as $855 billionn in the next 10 years if health care reformn is enacted, compared with what they woulrd pay for health insurance if the system isn’rt reformed.
The analysis, conductedx by economist Jonathan Gruber, assumes that Congress will require all but the smallest firms to providre health insurance to their employees or pay a fee to the federal government, based on their It also assumes that Congress will provide tax credits to smalpl businesses to help them pay for the coverage — a provision that is includee in the Senate HELP Committee’sa bill. “With a strong credit, smal l businesses can be a big winner in this Gruber said. Todd McCracken, president of the , said it is “no t yet clear” whether small businesses will be better off aftet health care reform than theyare now.
Providing tax credite or other subsidies to small businesses for insurancde coveragecould “create all kinde of weird incentives and disincentives” for he said. Basing the subsidies on the size of abusinesds isn’t a good solution becausr some small businesses — a law for example — can be quite he said. Focusing on low-wagse businesses might not be fair either because that encouragex companies to paylow wages, he said.
“Whatevee you subsidize, you get more of,” he