Health Reform To Leave Out Small Business?
Jan 11th, 2010 | By Dawn R. Rivers | Category: Politics & PolicyIn case you were wondering, the health care reform bill currently being negotiated between the House and the Senate will almost certainly be useless for the majority of microbusinesses. There are a few good things the bill accomplishes. For example, it prohibits insurance companies from denying insurance to prospective purchasers on the basis of pre-existing conditions and forbids carriers from dropping policy holders as soon as they get sick. The Senate version includes a string of small business friendly amendments, including moving up certain tax benefits for firms with fewer than 25 employees and expanding others and requiring the GAO to report to Congress on the impact of reform on small businesses.
That last item is going to be very important (assuming it survives the conference process). It will be when Congress learns that small and microbusiness employers remain unable to cover their employees and that nonemployer firms are no more likely to have insurance than they were before the so-called reform was passed. There are plenty of issues with our current system of health care delivery but the problem small business owners have been jumping up and down and yelling about the loudest is cost. This legislation does nothing to lower costs and what help it offers for microbusinesses doesn’t kick in for a few years. It is improbable that enactment of some form of health care reform legislation will cause the collapse of Western civilization. It is probable, however, that ignoring the constituency that cared the most about reform in the first place will create political troubles for Congressional Democrats later this year.
