Health Care Overhaul Enters Final Stages, Construction Industry Still Under Attack

The race to merge the House and Senate health care proposals continues, and once completed, the revised bill will be sent to the Congressional Budget Office to determine its cost. Despite the Democratic leadership's goal of presenting a bill to the president before the State of the Union Address, the negotiations remain fluid and the timeline continues to shift. Democratic leaders are skirting the traditional conference procedures to merge the bills and have resorted to closed-door meetings to finalize the differences in the bill. These negotiations have centered around increasing the threshold for the "Cadillac" tax, a national health insurance exchange vs. a state-based one and the size of federal subsidies for low income individuals. Additional sticking points include the creation of a commission to recommend Medicare cuts and costs of Medicaid expansion. The employer mandate, which would have a major impact on construction industry employers, is another issue that remains unresolved, as well as the small-business exemption associated with it and the penalty for not following the mandate. AGC remains concerned that the Senate singled out the industry most negatively impacted by the economic downturn, construction, with the Merkley amendment (named after the Oregon Senator who sought the provision, Jeff Merkley). AGC believes the amendment, which lowers the threshold for employer mandates from 50 employees to five, was astoundingly poorly-timed. Few senators knew the amendment was in the bill, and the unions and construction associations who endorsed the amendment represent less than 15 percent of total construction employees and less than 3 percent of America's construction companies. The Merkley amendment's five employee and $250,000-threshold is out of line with the House and Senate bills passed by committees. It is also out of line with other Human Resource laws and raises concerns about the impact of government regulations on small businesses. AGC believes the provision is a direct attack on small businesses in the industry most battered by the recession. AGC remains committed to removing the provision during the conference negotiations and encourages all AGC members to utilize the Legislative Action Center to voice their opposition to the provision to their elected officials.