Opposing view: 'Go back to drawing board'

This week House leaders rolled out a plan for reforming the health care system that would cost taxpayers more than a trillion dollars, leave nearly 20 million people uninsured and actually raise rather than reduce the cost of health care.

At the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents more than 3 million businesses, we have a simple litmus test for health reform legislation: Would it bring costs under control while improving quality and access? The House bill badly fails this test.

Businesses urgently need health reform. We spend more than $500 billion every year on health insurance, and our costs have doubled in the last decade. The Chamber strongly supports reforms that would emphasize prevention, the implementation of health IT, and a reduction in medical mistakes. We support insurance market reforms and tax incentives for individuals and small businesses so that they can secure coverage. And, we want to cover those who truly can't find or afford health insurance.

Instead of targeting these areas with practical reforms, the House bill would raise taxes, create vast new bureaucracies and lead us to government-run health care.

One of the worst provisions in the bill is a new requirement on employers to provide "gold-plated" benefit plans or pay a large new payroll tax. If you wanted to write a prescription for killing jobs and cutting payrolls at a time when unemployment is already close to 10%, this is it!

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says these new taxes would be passed on to workers. In addition, every taxpayer would eventually foot the bill for the new government-run insurance plan included in this legislation.

A new "surtax" would fall directly on successful small businesses, the drivers of the American economy. We should be bolstering small businesses and investors who create jobs, not harming them.

The bill's new government health plan would unfairly compete with private providers and unravel the employer-provided health system. It would create a new federal bureaucracy empowered to dictate medical treatments and ration care.

There are common sense things Congress can do to control health care costs, improve quality and help cover the uninsured. Instead, House leaders have decided to spend a trillion dollars of taxpayers' money to expand the size of government and put it in control of the health system. If they go back to the drawing board and come up with a good bill, the Chamber will gladly support it.

Thomas J. Donohue is president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world's largest business federation.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/07/opposing-view-go-back-to-drawing-board.html