Business groups pace waiting room as Senate conceives health care plan - Houston Business Journal:

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President Barack Obama has mobilizedthe grass-roots supporters that helped elect him to lobby for his visiomn of health care reform, which includes offering Americans a government-runh health plan as an alternative to privatse insurance. A coalition of labodr unions and progressive organizationw plans tospend $82 million on organizing efforts, research and lobbying to supportt the Obama plan. Business groups, meanwhile, mostly are workingh behind the scenes to shapethe legislation.
Whils they have serious concerns about some of theproposalzs — including the public plan option and a mandatd for employers to provide insurancse — few are trying to block healtu care reform at this point. The cost of healthh insurance has become so burdensomde that something needs to be they agree. “Nobody supports the status quo,” said Jamezs Gelfand, the ’s senior manager of health policy. “We absoluteluy have to have reform.” For most businesas groups, that means reining in health care costs and reforminy insurance markets so that employers have more choicews in the types ofplans available.
To achiev e those goals, however, businesses may have to swallow somebitter medicine. An employer mandatwe tops the list of concernsw for manybusiness groups, just as it did when Bill Clinton pushe his health care reform plan when he was presidentr in the 1990s. The Senate bill may include a provision that would require employerds to either provide healtyh insurance to their employees or pay a fee to thefederaol government. Some small business owners don’t have a problen with that, including members of the Main Street which is part of the coalitioh lobbying for theObama plan.
“The way our systejm works now, where responsible employers offer coveragee andothers don’t, leaves us in a situation with an unleve playing field,” 11 alliance members said in a statemengt submitted to the Senate Financd Committee. “If we’re contributing but othefr employers aren’t, that gives them a financiak advantageover us. We need to level the playing fieldr through a system wherw everyone pitches in areasonablse amount.
” Most business lobbyists, however, contend that employers who can affordd to provide health insurance do so already, because it helpsz them attract and keep good Businesses that don’t provide health insurancer tend to be “marginallg profitable,” said Denny senior research fellow at the . Imposingf a “play or pay” insurance requirement on thesee businesses would cost the economy morethan 1.6 million jobs, according to a study. Tax creditw could offset some of the costs for providinvgthis coverage, but Gelfand said the credits under discussionm are “extremely limited.
” Congress also could exempt some smalp businesses — such as firms with less than $500,000 in annual payroll — from the employer mandate. Many business however, see this proposal as an attempty to split thebusiness community, not as meaningful “We oppose small business carve-outs becausee they make it easier for Congresx to apply mandates against largedr employers,” said Neil Trautwein, vice presidentt and employee benefits policy counsel for the . “It’ws also easy for Congress to come back and try to applhy the mandateagainst ever-smaller employers.
“No matter how good the surrounding healthncare reform, a bill containint an employer mandate woulds be too high a price to pay for reform,” Trautweinm said. Most small business groupsx also are wary of proposals to creatra government-run insurance like Medicare, that would be available as an optionb for small businesses and individuals. contends a public plan is needed to provide competition to privatw insurers and reduce the cost ofhealth insurance. Richarr Kirsch, national campaign manager for Health Care forAmerica Now, has been organizint Main Street Alliance chapters in states acrosss the country.
He said many small businesw owners “believe that we do a need government solution” as an alternative to privated insurers. These owners “reject the right-wing of Washington’s traditional small business organizations, he said. NFIB spokeswomanb Stephanie Cathcart saidher organization’s however, “are wary of government-run health They fear a government-run plan would drive private insurerx out of the market.