Health Care Proposals Prove Risky for Small Businesses

The massive $1.5 trillion health care overhaul currently meandering through Congress is going through five committees (three in the House and two in the Senate). So far two House committees and one Senate committee have finished their consideration of the bill. Based on AGC's analysis of the parts of the bill that have emerged, AGC members and their employees will face a nearly impossible task of keeping insurance coverage, paying for coverage and maintaining an acceptable level of coverage without being pushed into a national plan. As such, AGC currently opposes the health care reform proposals in Congress. The various proposals include employer mandates to provide an acceptable level of health care and an individual mandate to purchase health care. A public plan will be created to compete with private plans in an exchange, while a medical advisory board will decide what type of policy is acceptable. The proposals call for prohibitions against excess profits by health care companies and eliminating exclusions for preexisting conditions, as well as prohibition of catastrophic plans and lifetime caps. They also include guarantees renewal, mental health and substance abuse parity, caps for out of pocket expenses and limits on annual co-pays. They may also eliminate the use of health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts. The House may bring up the bill as soon as next week, while the Senate continues to try and find a bipartisan compromise and may use the August recess to work out the differences rather than rushing to pass a bill.