Small Businesses Oppose Mandated Health Benefits

The small business lobbying group that had a big part in derailing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s effort to overhaul health care in the early 1990’s has staked out its position for the 2008 political season.

The National Federation of Independent Business, which says it has 350,000 members with active lobbyists in 50 states, warned politicians and policy makers on Wednesday not to impose new health-benefit obligations on small employers. The group said in a statement of principles that “a health care system built on employer mandates or on pay-or-play taxes is unacceptable.”

The Democratic presidential candidates, including Senator Clinton, Barak Obama and John Edwards have generally called for requiring employers to provide coverage or to pay into a fund to help insure many of the 47 million uninsured people in the United States without coverage. Republican candidates have talked less about health care, usually supporting the Bush administration’s proposals for tax incentives to help pay for coverage.

“We are opposed to payroll taxes,” said Susan Eckerly, a vice president for the business federation. “They are the number one job killer for the small business owner.”

The organization has been working on health care issues with a wide-ranging group of lobbying allies, including the Business Roundtable of corporate chiefs; the Service Employees International Union; the National Restaurant Association; and the building contractors lobby.

In its statement of principles the federation called for universal health care, with a government safety net to help the neediest obtain coverage. But it opposed proposals to place health care under an umbrella of Medicare-style “single payer” financing. Government safety nets should not be allowed to “crowd out private insurance and care,” the federation said.

A separate national survey released Wednesday by the Mercer benefits consulting firm found that both small and large employers were skeptical about “pay or play” proposals that would require them to offer a health plan or pay into a fund to provide coverage for the uninsured.

Only 23 percent of small employers and 25 percent of large companies with 500 or more workers support pay or play, according to a telephone survey by Mercer. In Massachusetts, which introduced such a policy in October 2006, employer support was slightly higher, 30 percent.

Although small businesses say they are hard pressed by health costs, which are still rising annually in the double digits for small companies, the federation said very few of its members that provide employee benefits had ended coverage. But only about half of the group’s members provide employee health coverage.

Ms. Eckerly said the small business group had joined with restaurant owners and contractors in inviting all the presidential candidates to discuss health care on conference calls with hundreds of their members.

So far, she said, the Republican candidates, Rudolph W. Giuliani and John McCain, have taken part in these calls. Senator Clinton’s health policy advisers have briefed officials of the small business federation.

Todd Stottlemyer, the group’s president and chief executive, noted that Mrs. Clinton’s plan “recognizes the challenges facing small businesses” by excluding firms with fewer than 25 workers from her proposed requirement that employers provide health insurance or contribute to the cost of coverage.

‘We have not endorsed any candidate,” he added.

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