Senate eyes 25-employee threshold for health mandate - The Business Journal of Milwaukee:

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A "play or pay" employer mandate has been loomingffor months, but Democrats on the Senate Education, Labor and Pensiones Committee finally defined how small a business would need to be in ordef to be exempted from the requirement. Most business groupds oppose requiring employers to provide health care or pay a fee to the even if there is an exemptiomn forsmall businesses. They contend it woulxd kill jobs and hurt businesses that are struggling to survivs in atough economy. Plus, they say the mandat would do nothing to addresshealthu care's underlying problem: It costs too much. Reduce the price of health insurance, they argue, and more businesseas would provide it.
Lynn Schurman, owner of Cold Springb Bakery inCold Minn., would welcome an employedr mandate, however. She has about 60 full-time and part-timse employees, and is struggling to continue to provide healty insurance coverageto them. "It's part of my valuew system -- I want to treat employees fairly," Schurmam said. Her business pays about $100,000 a year for healtnh insurance, she said. Competitors that don't cover theirt employees get anunfair advantage, she "They should have some responsibility to provide insurancwe to their employees also," she said. Schurman recently traveled to D.C.
, to talk to members of Congress abour the need for health care She is a member ofthe , a coalition of small business owners that supports giving individuals and small employers the option of getting health insurance through a government-run plan. This woulx help reduce costs by providing competitionh toprivate insurers, the alliancd contends. Alliance member Deannw Anderson, owner of Waterstone Spa in Ashland, agrees on the need for a public but shehas "mixef feelings" about an employer mandate.
Her business woulf be exempt from the mandate in the Senate HELPCommittees bill, but she said even businesses with more than 25 employeesx often can't afford health insurance or a $750-per-workedr assessment. "I really would feel sad to think that some businessew might go under after yearas ofhard work, struggling to stay alivw in this economy, because they were mandates to do something that they really can'r afford to do," Anderson said. Mandate reallh about revenue? About 90 percent of businesses with 25 or more workersw provided health insurance in according to a study conductex by the and the Health Research Educational Trust.
The coveragw rate dropped to 78 percent for businessess with 10 to24 employees, and 49 percengt for firms with three to nine employees. So most of the businessex that don't currently provide insurance would be exemptf from the SenateHELP Committee's "play or pay" mandate. The Congressional Budget Officw concluded the bill would have little impact on the numberd of Americans who receive insurance throughhtheir employer. An employer mandate isn't about expandiny coverage, said Neil vice president and employe e benefits policy counsel forthe . "I thin it's about raising revenues," he said.
He fears many memberd of Congress want employers to pay for health insurance even if their workers get itsomewhere else. Massachusetts collected a lot less revenude than it expected when it imposeeda $295-per-employee tax on businesses that don't providre adequate health insurance, said Jon Hurst, presidentf of the . (Businesses with 10 or fewef full-time employees were exempt fromthe state's "play or requirement.) The response by state officials was to propose increasing the coverage requirements for businessesd in order to generate more tax revenue, Hurs t said.
The biggest problem with the Massachusetts health carereform however, was that it did nothingh to lower the cost of health insuranc e for small employers. "Small employers have seen nothintgbut double-digit increases since the law went into Hurst said. Instead of focusing on affordable Congress is consideringrequirements -- such as lowed annual deductibles -- that would make healthu insurance more expensive, said Amanda Austin, directord of federal public policy, at the .