U.S. Chamber Releases New Employer Primer on House Health Care Legislation

'Proposed bill would launch over a trillion dollars in new spending and create a massive new bureaucracy,' said Johnson

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Chamber of Commerce today released an analysis outlining the inadequacies of the House Tri-Committee bill, as introduced, which contains many provisions that will harm both employers and employees, imposing dozens of new rules on health plans.

"The proposed bill would launch over a trillion dollars in new spending and create a massive new bureaucracy," said Randy Johnson, senior vice president of the Chamber's Labor, Immigration, and Employee Benefits division, who commissioned this analysis by Nandan Kenkeremath, president of Leading Edge Policy and Strategy LLC. "While much has been written about pending legislation in the House of Representatives, we believe that this analysis is one of the few that really digs down into many unexplored issues that will greatly affect the employer community."

This analysis entitled "A Primer on Employer and Employee Issues in the House Health Care Reform Legislation" examines some of the consequences of enacting H.R. 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, considering policy and budgetary concerns that have been overlooked. Although the legislation will continue to evolve, the current bill will:

• Increase the federal debt and deficits
• Launch a massive federal bureaucracy for employer-sponsored insurance
• Force changes to current employer plans, regardless of whether employees liked the original plans
• Unfairly deny individual affordability credits to low and moderate income workers whose employers provide health insurance
• Tie up substantial resources of employers, insurers, and providers to adjust to a wide variety of new rules and changes
• Reduce spending under Medicare, but not direct those savings to address the problem of unfunded obligations under Medicare.
• Fail to reduce the rise in national health care costs

The full analysis is available at: /publications/reports/090925healthcare

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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