NRF Asks Senate to Reject House Bill on Health Care Reform
For Immediate Release
Contact: J. Craig Shearman (202) 626-8134
shearmanc@nrf.com
Read NRF Letter
NRF Asks Senate to Reject House Bill on Health Care Reform
WASHINGTON, March 23, 2010 – The National Retail Federation today urged the Senate to reject a package of health care reform amendments passed by the House, saying the measure would make legislation signed by President Obama even more costly to employers and further threaten retail jobs.
“The 111th Congress’ health care reform debate has been disappointing to say the least,” NRF Senior Vice President for Government Relations Steve Pfister said. “Retailers came to this debate with high hopes for lower health care and coverage costs. The legislation that emerged was punitive in its penalty mandates and insufficient in its approach to health reform and the cost of medical care.”
President Obama this morning signed H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the health care bill passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve and given final approval by the House on Sunday. Pfister said amendments to that bill that would be made under H.R. 4872, the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010, would exacerbate NRF’s concerns about the lack of greater and more immediate savings for employer-sponsored health care coverage, penalties for employers who fail to provide health insurance coverage to full-time workers, and higher taxes that would be passed on to both employers and consumers.
“H.R. 4872 greatly increases employer penalties, a dangerous move in our view given that we found the Senate-passed mandate penalties unacceptable. H.R. 4872 also counts part-time employees in coverage threshold calculations – an approach that could ensnare small to mid-sized retailers,” Pfister said. “The problems in this bill far outweigh any positive measures contained within.”
With the new law and proposed amendments requiring employers to either provide health care coverage to full-time workers or pay hefty penalties for failing to do so, it is “an economic certainty” that retailers operating under razor-thin profit margins will be forced to reduce the size of their workforces or slow expansion plans, Pfister said.
“This is an outright tax on jobs, a dangerous strategy when our economy so clearly needs to grow through job creation,” Pfister said. “Health care reform in its current form will become the biggest anti-stimulus legislation imaginable.”
Pfister’s comments came in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and all members of the Senate.
The Senate bill imposes a penalty of $750 per full-time worker on companies with 50 or more employees that do not provide coverage to full-time workers. But the House reconciliation bill would increase that penalty to $2,000, with the first 30 workers exempted. If an employer offers coverage but the coverage is deemed unaffordable to a full-time employee, that employee can opt out to a new purchasing exchange. The company would then be assessed $3,000 for each of those employees up to a cap of $2,000 for every full-time worker on the payroll. The mandate becomes applicable in 2014.
Also, under the House bill, the 50-worker threshold would be calculated based on full-time equivalents, meaning part-time workers would be counted even though they would not be required to be offered insurance. The Senate bill counts only full-time workers.
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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