Thousands of AGC members respond to call to action
Last Saturday night the House passed the Affordable Health Care for America Act 220 to 215 (click here to view how your members voted) along party lines with 39 Democrats opposing and one Republican supporting.
The debate now shifts to the Senate where Majority Leader Harry Reid is getting Presidential pressure to wrap up the debate before Christmas and Reid may force the Senate to work Saturdays in December to debate the bill. However, there is still no final bill in the Senate and Senator Reid will not have a Congressional Budget Office cost estimate of his latest draft version of health care reform until the end of this week. With the close House vote, the Senate will be more deliberate and methodical in its approach than the House. Senate moderates who represent states where House members opposed the bill will now feel a tremendous amount of pressure from their constituents, which creates one more hurdle Senate Democratic leaders have to overcome in order to convince already skittish moderates to support reform.
Senate targets are the senators from the following states: Arkansas, Alaska, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska and Virginia. For more information on proposed health care reform, visit AGC's Health Care Web site.
AGC opposed the $1 trillion "Affordable Health Care for America Act," because it failed to address the root cause of rising costs, will likely eliminate competition and restricts economic growth with punitive penalties for employers. AGC members answered the call to action last week by sending over 4,000 letters to Congress in less than 24 hours in opposition to the bill. This response brings this year's efforts to over 8,000 individual messages. As the debate shifts to the Senate, AGC of America will again be calling on Chapters and members to advocate for affordable, quality health care through broader coverage, choice and competition in the marketplace.
Key provisions of the House bill include:
- Employers will be subjected to an 8 percent payroll tax for each employee that does not receive coverage from the employer, even if the employer offers adequate benefits - as determined by a government entity - but the employee chooses to enter a government plan.
- Mandated expansive coverage and the existence of the public plan in the legislation will likely eliminate much of the nations' private insurance. It is not feasible that the government can be both regulator and participant in the health care system.
- The $1 trillion bill will be financed by $460 billion in new taxes and $500 billion in future Medicare cuts. The new taxes include a surtax for individuals with income above $500,000. This tax will be especially harsh for businesses structured as pass through entities where the business taxes are paid by the individual company owners, making it more difficult for the employer to operate the business and create or even retain jobs.
- The punitive business taxes and new and future mandates on insurance coverage will fail to lower the costs of purchasing health care and could stifle economic growth at a time when the industry is already suffering unemployment that is nearly double the national average.