U.S. Chamber to States: Don't Pass Health Care Mandates on Nation's Larger Employers

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The United States Chamber of Commerce today urged state legislatures to resist a wave of proposed legislation mandating how larger employers provide health insurance to their workers, calling the labor-backed proposals bad public policy.

"Targeting big companies with politically-motivated health care mandates on a state-by-state basis is not only unfair, it is illegal," said Chamber President and CEO Tom Donohue. "These bills may prompt other states to try their hand at setting national policy, but they do nothing to address our nation's mounting health care crisis."

Labor unions and their allies are pressuring state legislators in 29 states to introduce legislation that would require large employers such as Wal-Mart or Target to earmark a percentage of payroll spending for health care costs, or place an equal amount of money directly in the particular state's health care fund for low-income individuals. Similar legislation was passed by Maryland lawmakers over Governor Robert Ehrlich's veto in January.

This "one-size-fits-all" approach to health insurance does very little, if anything, to control the skyrocketing costs of coverage or improve the quality of care. These proposals unfairly target a small segment of employers, and will likely result in businesses moving out of the affected states.

The Chamber also applauded the filing of two lawsuits by the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) in Maryland and New York over similar legislation and will file in support of RILA at an appropriate stage of the litigation.

Lawmakers at both the state and federal level should be exploring ways to lower existing health care costs and help small business owners gain access to affordable quality care rather supporting ill-conceived and ineffective health care mandates on employers, according to the Chamber.

The U.S. Chamber is the world's largest business federation representing more than three million businesses and organizations of every size, sector and region.

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