U.S. Chamber Raises Concerns with House Health Care Reform Bill

Johnson Testimony Asks House to 'Take this Legislation Back to the Drawing Board'

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In testimony before the House Committee on Ways and Means today, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Senior Vice President of Labor, Immigration, and Employee Benefits, Randel Johnson, expressed serious concern with the committee's accelerated process to address health care reform and urged Congress to take this legislation back to the drawing board.

"The Chamber applauds Congress for making health reform a priority. However, we have serious concerns about the process being used to advance this legislation. We need to focus on reducing costs and making coverage affordable, and the initial task will be complete.

"First and foremost, the Chamber opposes the 'pay-or-play' proposal. Requiring employers to either provide some level of health insurance or surrender a huge percentage of payroll to the government will result in job losses and lower wages. Many employers can afford health insurance, but many can't.

"There's no meaningful justification for creating a government-run insurance plan other than to gut the private market. Whether or not this proposal is a Trojan horse for single-payer health care, it is apparent that its cause is ideological, not pragmatic.

"Likewise, we are especially concerned about proposals to anoint a new committee of unelected bureaucrats to make laws regarding required levels of benefits.

"Proposals to tax employee health benefits would also have extremely negative reverberations in the economy. These taxes would fall directly on workers, who would see their taxable income increase. Worst of all, some are proposing to give union workers a pass, thus directly taxing every non-union American worker to subsidize overly generous union benefits.

"The business community stands ready to work with Congress to pass health care reform legislation. But the bill in the House is seriously flawed."

Johnson's complete testimony is available at: /issues/testimony/2009/090624_healthreform

The U.S. Chamber is the world's largest business federation representing more than 3 million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region.

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