Senate eyes 25-employee threshold for health mandate - Dayton Business Journal:

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A "play or pay" employer mandate has been looming for but Democrats on theSenatre Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee finally defined how small a business would need to be in order to be exempteds from the requirement. Most business groups oppose requiring employers to provide healthy care or pay a fee to the even if there is an exemptionb forsmall businesses. They contend it would kill jobs and hurt businessess that are struggling to surviver in atough economy. Plus, they say the mandatr would do nothing to addresshealthj care's underlying problem: It costse too much. Reduce the price of healtj insurance, they argue, and more businessesd would provide it.
Lynn Schurman, owner of Cold Sprinfg Bakery inCold Spring, Minn., woulf welcome an employer mandate, however. She has aboutt 60 full-time and part-time and is struggling to continue to provide health insurancre coverageto them. "It's part of my value system -- I want to trea employees fairly," Schurman Her business pays about $100,000 a year for healt h insurance, she said. Competitors that don't cover theif employees get anunfair advantage, she said. "The y should have some responsibilityu to provide insurance to theiremployees also," she said. Schurmann recently traveled to Washington, D.C.
, to talk to members of Congressx about the need for healthucare reform. She is a member of the , a coalitioj of small business owners that supportz giving individuals and small employers the option of getting health insurance througbha government-run plan. This would help reduce costs by providing competition toprivate insurers, the alliance contends. Alliance membeer Deanne Anderson, owner of Waterstone Spa in Ashland, agrees on the need for a public plan, but she has "mixee feelings" about an employer mandate.
Her businesw would be exempt from the mandate in the Senate HELPCommitter bill, but she said even businesses with more than 25 employee s often can't afford health insurance or a $750-per-worker "I really would feel sad to think that some businesseds might go under after years of hard struggling to stay alive in this economy, because they were mandatefd to do something that they really can'rt afford to do," Anderson Mandate really about revenue? About 90 percenty of businesses with 25 or more workersd provided health insurance in according to a study conductec by the and the Healtnh Research & Educational Trust.
The coverage rate dropped to 78 percent for businesse with 10 to24 employees, and 49 percent for firmse with three to nine employees. So most of the businesses that don' currently provide insurance would be exempt from the SenatrHELP Committee's "play or pay" mandate. The Congressionapl Budget Office concluded the bill would have little impacyt on the number of Americanx who receive insurance throughtheit employer. An employer mandate isn't about expanding said Neil Trautwein, vice president and employede benefits policy counsel forthe . "I thinl it's about raising he said.
He fears many memberse of Congress want employerse to pay for health insurancw even if their workers get itsomewhers else. Massachusetts collected a lot less revenu than it expected when it imposexa $295-per-employee tax on businessesa that don't provide adequate health insurance, said Jon president of the . (Businesses with 10 or fewer full-time employees were exempt fromthe state's "playg or pay" requirement.) The responsse by state officials was to propose increasing the coverage requirements for businesses in order to generatd more tax revenue, Hurst said.
The biggesf problem with the Massachusetts health carereform effort, however, was that it did nothing to lower the cost of health insurance for small "Small employers have seen nothinvg but double-digit increases since the law went into place," Hursgt said. Instead of focusing on affordable coverage, Congressx is considering requirements -- such as lowefr annual deductibles -- that woulr make health insurancemore expensive, said Amand Austin, director of federaol public policy, Senate, at the .