NRF Asks Senate to Reject ‘Anti-Stimulus’ Health Care Reform
For Immediate Release
Contact: J. Craig Shearman (202) 626-8134
shearmanc@nrf.com
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NRF Asks Senate to Reject ‘Anti-Stimulus’ Health Care Reform
WASHINGTON, December 18, 2009 – The National Retail Federation today asked the Senate to reject health care reform legislation set for a series of votes over the next several days, calling the measure “the biggest anti-stimulus legislation imaginable” and expressing concern that it would prompt further job losses in the retail industry and other sectors of the economy. NRF said consideration of the legislation would be included in its annual ranking of key votes important to the retail industry.
“We continue to favor comprehensive reform and universal health care coverage but only if it can be done reasonably and not at the expense of retail jobs in this job-starved economy,” NRF Senior Vice President for Government Relations Steve Pfister said. “Health care reform, unfortunately, is in danger of becoming the biggest anti-stimulus legislation imaginable.”
Pfister’s comments came in a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also sent to all members of the Senate. Senators are scheduled to begin voting on Reid’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act this weekend.
Pfister also expressed concern at the “lack of transparency” as Reid has kept details of revised versions of the bill secret from senators and stakeholders “who will bear the brunt of its impact,” adding that “good health care policy has fallen prey to political expediency and arbitrary deadlines.”
Pfister said the Reid bill includes some provisions that demonstrate a bipartisan consensus toward positive health care policy and acknowledged lawmakers’ “hard work and sustained commitment” toward passing health care reform. But he said there are nonetheless “many other elements that by far outweigh the positive elements in the bill,” including a conditional pay-or-play employer mandate for companies to either provide health coverage or pay huge financial penalties, restrictions on the ability to manage diverse workforces, and higher taxes that would be passed on to employers and consumers.
“NRF adamantly opposes employer mandates of any type, whether pay-or-play, set penalty or ‘free rider’ in nature,” Pfister said. “There is no good or acceptable way to mandate that employers provide coverage. Employer mandates are fundamentally inconsistent with good health care reform. It is an economic certainty that if labor costs significantly increase, retailers – who operate on razor-thin profit margins – will have no choice but to reduce the size of their workforces.”
“Clearly, employer mandates of any kind amount to a direct tax on jobs and we can think of few steps that would be more dangerous to take in the middle of our present economic difficulty,” Pfister said. “Our economy needs to grow through job creation, not to have double-digit employment numbers further exacerbated.”
The National Retail Federation is the world's largest retail trade association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet, independent stores, chain restaurants, drug stores and grocery stores as well as the industry's key trading partners of retail goods and services. NRF represents an industry with more than 1.6 million U.S. retail establishments, more than 24 million employees - about one in five American workers - and 2008 sales of $4.6 trillion. As the industry umbrella group, NRF also represents more than 100 state, national and international retail associations. www.nrf.com.
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