06/21/2007
CONTACT: John Kabateck or Michael Shaw, 916-448-9904
or Tony Malandra, 415-664-9685
NFIB/California responds to today's announcement by Senate president and Assembly speaker
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Today's merging of two major health-care bills into one piece of legislation, which was announced by their authors -- Senate President Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez -- only increases the fears of small-business owners that they, more than ever, are dead center in the crosshairs of its open-ended financing.
"Curing the deaf ears lawmakers have turned toward the pleas of small-business owners would be the very best start in dealing with the health-care crisis in California," said John Kabateck, executive director for the National Federation of Independent Business/California, America's leading small-business advocacy group. "The Legislature's approach to health-care reform is putting the cart before the horse by mandating unaffordable health coverage."
The legislation, Assembly Bill 8, calls on businesses to fork over a new payroll tax of 7.5 percent, the same as a 50 percent increase in Social Security taxes. There are no cost containment or control measures, no small-business exemptions, and nothing to assist employers with the cost of health-insurance premiums.
The key to putting a dent in the number of medically uninsured, according to Kabateck, is to get a handle on costs. Legislators, on the other hand, are only concerned with coverage, a distinction that cannot be understated. Small-business owners desperately want to provide health care for their employees, which is why they have listed it as their No. 1 problem for the past 20 years in surveys conducted by NFIB. Nationally, less than half of small-business owners can afford health care for themselves or their employees, compared with 99 percent of big businesses that provide medical coverage.
