Healthcare

Issue Overview:  NFIB studies show healthcare costs continue to be a critical problem for Wisconsin small business owners and their employers. As a result, many small employers no longer can afford to provide a health insurance benefit, and thousands more have been forced to make dramatic reductions in coverage.

• Statewide Purchasing Alliance: We support the creation of health insurance purchasing pools that will help increase bargaining power, strengthen purchasing clout, and improve administrative efficiencies. We support policy reforms to balance the competing goals of access to quality care, affordability, and predictability and consumer choice.

• Healthy Wisconsin: The $15.2 billion payroll tax proposal would discourage small business creation, limit future investment, and eliminate any prospect for job growth. Our members are strongly opposed to any health insurance reform proposal that relies on a payroll assessment for funding.

• Health Savings Accounts: We strongly support legislation that would adopt federal law as it relates to the state tax treatment of HSAs. The benefits of HSA accounts have made them an effective, popular and affordable option for small business employers and employees.

• Health Benefit Mandates: We are opposed to legislation that requires small business owners to include specific coverages in their health insurance plans. These government-mandated coverages increase health insurance costs, and deny small business owners and their workers the freedom to purchase the coverages they prefer to have in their health plans.

• Medical Liability:  We support legislation that limits noneconomic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also legislation that prohibits transferring revenue from the patients compensation fund for purposes unrelated to medical liability.

• Universal Access to Healthcare: We support free-market reforms that will implement greater price sensitivity, establish standards for healthcare quality, provide price disclosure, and promote meaningful competition in the marketplace throughout the healthcare industry.

• Price Disclosure: An important part of the consumer-driven healthcare market is meaningful disclosure of prices charged by medical providers. We support legislation that would require health providers provide understandable and useful cost information.

• Tax on Hospitals: The problem with healthcare is that it is often too expensive, and taxing healthcare will only make it more expensive and further inhibit the ability of employers and workers to access affordable coverage. We oppose the proposal to tax hospitals.