There Are Better Ways to Handle Healthcare
Small business owners want to and do offer healthcare plans that cover a wide variety of benefits such as preventive care and cancer screenings. Providing these types of benefits is important to the productivity of NFIB members and their employees. However, NFIB continues to be greatly concerned by government imposed mandates that discourage consumer control and innovative health plan design.
A health-insurance "mandate" is a legislative requirement that an insurance company or health plan cover specific healthcare providers, benefits or patient populations. For almost every healthcare product or service there is someone who wants insurance to cover it so that those who use the products and services don't have to pay out of pocket for them, but will get them as a covered benefit through their insurance policy.
While mandates make small business health insurance more comprehensive, they also make it more expensive. Mandates require insurers to pay for care consumers may have previously funded out of their own pockets, thereby raising the price of premium to cover the increased claims the insurer anticipates to take place as a result of the mandate.
In some markets, mandated benefits increase the cost of health insurance by as much as 45 percent. Mandating benefits is like requiring auto insurance to not only cover collisions and auto damage but to also pay for new tires, engine tune ups and oil changes. Imagine what an auto insurance policy would cost if that were the case!
