(CNSNews.com) – Two days away from a House vote on the health care reform bill, Obama administration officials insisted the new reform will be a boon for the nation’s small businesses.
“More has happened on health care in the last nine months than has happened in arguably the last 70 years,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “The battle becomes more ferocious as the goal line is in sight.”
Sebelius spoke to about 200 small business owners from across the country who gathered for an event at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building near the White House.
One half of small business owners that offered health insurance have switched plans that require higher out-of-pocket expense, Sebelius said. She added that one in eight small businesses dropped insurance altogether.
The House will vote Thursday on a near 2,000-page health care overhaul bill that will mandate employers provide insurance, mandate individuals carry insurance, and establish a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers. The bill has a $1 trillion price tag over the next 10 years, according to the
Congressional Budget Office.
The Senate has a similar proposal that will be voted on at a later date.
Sebelius insisted that the health care reform legislation being considered by the House and Senate would mean long-term savings for taxpayers, in response to a question from someone in the audience.
“The CBO looks at the world through an accountant’s lens. That’s all fine,” Sebelius said. “But there is no positive score for redirecting our health system to prevention and wellness.”
But House Republicans argue that 5.5 million jobs could be lost from the Democratic health plans as a result of taxes on businesses that cannot afford to provide health insurance coverage, citing the model developed by President Obama’s own Council of Economic Advisor’s Chair Christina Romer.
The total new taxes on small businesses and individuals who cannot afford health coverage and employers who cannot afford to provide coverage is a combined $729.5 billion, the House Republican Conference contends.
Small business owners want health care reform, but not what is being offered in the Democratic bill, said Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.).
“The costs imposed on small business are exhibit,” Lummis told CNSNews.com. “A lot of businesses will pay the 8 percent penalty and shift employees onto the public plan, because it will ultimately be cheaper.”
Small businesses are the nation’s largest employers, creating 64 percent of the nation’s jobs, said U.S. Small Business Administration Administrator Karen Mills told the gathering. Further 80 percent of Americans either own or work for small businesses, Mills said.
Surveys of small businesses since 1986 have cited affordable health insurance as the lead concern.
“We are closer now than ever,” to reform, Mills told the audience.