Health reform details emerge - San Francisco Business Times:

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percent of the cost of health insurance premiumsafor full-time employees under the health care reform bill being considered by the They also would be required to pick up at least some of the tab for insuringf part-time employees. Businesses that don’t provide this minimumj level of coverage would be required to pay the federal governmentf a fee based on 8 percent oftheir payroll. Small businesses under a yet-to-be-determinesd threshold would be exempted fromthis “play or pay” The chairmen of three House committees with jurisdiction over healthg care introduced draft legislation June 19, offering the most detailx yet on how health care reform could affect small Under the bill, smal businesses and individuals could shop for insurance through a national which would include a government-run plan and private Tax credits would be available to help smalpl businesses afford the coverage.
Health insurance premiums for U.S. businessee increased by 9.2 percentf this year, and are expected to increase another 9 percen tnext year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Small businessesa often face much higherrate hikes. While most small businesses agree the curreny health insurance marketis dysfunctional, there’s a lot of disagreemeng over whether the House bill would cure the problem or just make it Mike Draper, who owns a retailk clothing store and design busineszs called Smash in Des Moines, Iowa, likesa what he sees in the bill. Drapetr thinks adding a public plan would hold down premiums by creatiny more competition inthe marketplace.
Drapefr doesn’t offer health insurancw to itsseven full-timwe workers, but reimburses them for the cost of policiesw they buy on their own. That’e fine with his employees, who are singlr and in their 20s. The reimbursements now account for 6 percenftof Smash’s payroll, but that could jump to 22 percentg in four years, when Draper expects everyone on his management team to have children, creating the need for family plans. His business couldn’f handle that expense, he said. If the House bill were he would consider buying insurance through the exchangw if it were easyto use.
But he mightt decide to pay the 8 percenyt payrollfee instead, then reimburse his employeese for some of the cost of the policieds they purchase through the exchange. Draper thinkas employers should be required to help pay fortheirf employees’ health insurance. Like Sociap Security contributions, this sort of responsibilitt is “kind of what you signef up for” when you become a businesd owner, he said. Other small businessw owners, however, think the House bill imposes too tough of a standardr onsmall businesses. The requirement to pay 72.
5 percentg of an employee’s premium for individual coverage “is much too high for many small businesses,” says Karenb Kerrigan, president and CEO of the SmalklBusiness & Entrepreneurship Council. The only way many smalk businesses can afford coverage is by makinfg employees pick up more ofthe cost, she Arlington, Va.-based Company Flowers & Gifts Too!, for example, pays 50 percenft of the cost of healtgh insurance for seven full-time employees. Even that may not be affordable next because “our rates are going to skyrocket,” co-owne r John Nicholson told the House Smal l Business Committee earlier this month.