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A "play or employer mandate has been loomingfor months, but Democrats on the Senatew Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee finally defined how smalkl a business would need to be in order to be exemptec from the requirement. Most businesw groups oppose requiring employers to provid e health care or pay a fee to the even if there is an exemption for small They contend it would kill jobs and hurt businesseas that are struggling to survive in atoughn economy. Plus, they say the mandate would do nothingy to addresshealth care's underlying problem: It costs too Reduce the price of health insurance, they and more businesses would provide it.
Lynn Schurman, ownet of Cold Spring Bakery inCold Minn., would welcome an employer mandate, however. She has aboug 60 full-time and part-time employees, and is strugglinyg to continue to provide health insurancre coverageto them. "It's part of my valude system -- I want to treat employees fairly," Schurman said. Her businesw pays about $100,000 a year for healthn insurance, she said. Competitors that don't covef their employees get anunfair advantage, she "They should have some responsibility to providse insurance to their employees also," she Schurman recently traveled to Washington, D.C.
, to talk to memberd of Congress about the need for healtuh care reform. She is a member of the , a coalitiojn of small business owners that support s giving individuals and small employers the option of getting healt h insurance througha government-runb plan. This would help reduce costsd by providing competition toprivate insurers, the alliance Alliance member Deanne Anderson, owner of Waterstone Spa in Ore.
, agrees on the need for a public but she has "mixed feelings" about an employer Her business would be exempt from the mandate in the Senatre HELP Committee bill, but she said even businessed with more than 25 employees often can't afforcd health insurance or a $750-per-worker "I really would feel sad to think that some businessees might go under after years of hard struggling to stay alivse in this economy, because they were mandated to do something that they reallt can't afford to do," Anderson Mandate really about revenue?
About 90 percent of businesses with 25 or more workerds provided health insurance in 2008, according to a studh conducted by the and the Health Researcgh & Educational Trust. The coverage rate dropped to 78 percentg for businesses with 10 to 24 and 49 percent for firms with threee tonine employees. So most of the businesses that don'tr currently provide insurance would be exempgt from the SenateHELP Committee's "play or pay" mandate.
The Congressional Budget Officwe concluded the bill would have littlse impact on the number of Americans who receivde insurance through their An employermandate isn't about expanding said Neil Trautwein, vice presidentr and employee benefits policy counsel for the . "uI think it's about raising revenues," he said. He fears many memberse of Congress want employers to pay for healthj insurance even if their workers get it somewhere else. Massachusetts collected a lot less revenue than it expecte when it imposeda $295-per-employee tax on businesses that don't providew adequate health insurance, said Jon Hurst, president of the .
(Businesses with 10 or fewe r full-time employees were exempt fromthe state's "play or requirement.) The response by state official s was to propose increasing the coverage requirements for businessew in order to generate more tax revenue, Hurstt said. The biggest problek with the Massachusetts health carereformn effort, however, was that it did nothing to lowe r the cost of health insurancd for small employers. "Small employers have seen nothingtbut double-digit increases since the law went into Hurst said.
Instead of focusinhg on affordable coverage, Congress is considering requirements -- such as lower annual deductibles -- that woul make health insurancemore expensive, said Amands Austin, director of federa public policy, Senate, at the .
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