ATA, Business Groups Say Health-Care Law Likely to Increase Costs, Threaten Benefits
This story appears in the March 29 print edition of Transport Topics.
Business groups, including American Trucking Associations, said they had concerns about the recently enacted health-care reform package.
“We’re concerned about the mandate and fine if you don’t provide insurance,” said ATA spokesman Clayton Boyce, adding the federation was wary of “the possibility that it will increase costs.”
President Obama signed the $940 billion package of health-care and insurance reforms on March 23, but the Senate was debating a second package of tweaks and fixes to the bill and was expected to pass it after press time.
“We have now just enshrined the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health,” Obama said upon signing the legislation.
Among the features of the legislation is a $2,000-per-worker fee for employers whose insurance is subsidized by the government, though companies with 50 employees would be exempt from the levy.
In a letter to Congress, R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the bill “creates a damaging new mandate on employers that would force them to either offer a government-mandated level of coverage or be liable for significant new taxes.”
The law also provides coverage for 32 million Americans currently without insurance; forbids insurers to cancel policies of people who are seriously ill or to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions; expands Medicaid to cover more people; requires individuals to buy insurance or pay a fee; and provides subsidies for low-income and lower-middle-class families to purchase insurance.
To pay for the plan, the Medicare payroll tax is increased for people making more than $200,000 or married couples making more than $250,000 and applies a 3.8% tax to investment income.
It also imposes a 40% tax on so-called “Cadillac,” or high-cost, health insurance plans in 2018.
In a statement after the House voted March 21 to finish the reform package, U.S. Chamber President Thomas Donohue said, “The business community is strongly committed to providing quality health care to its employees . . . [and] today’s decision will make that task more difficult and expensive.”
John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, said that it was “unfortunate that the House of Representatives passed a health care bill that is going to increase costs and make it difficult for manufacturers to continue to offer generous health benefits.”
Before the bill was sent to the president, it received no Republican votes and, in fact, a dozen Republican state attorneys general and one Democratic attorney general have banded together to sue the federal government, claiming the new law is unconstitutional.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
