LANSING – The Small Business Association of Michigan said Thursday that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act does nothing to address the number one problem facing small businesses and their employees.
“Health care, and therefore health insurance, is simply too expensive for all of us and many people are priced out of the market,” said SBAM Senior Vice President Scott Lyon, a nationally-known expert on small business health insurance. “Subsidies are simply a band aid that covers the true problem, which is cost. Congress now needs to focus on this fundamental issue.”
Over the short term, Lyon says that Congress needs to repeal the annual fee on health insurance carriers, which is a tax passed along to purchasers of health insurance; consider repealing the Employer Mandate and simplifying the employer definitions and employment classifications, increase the number of rate bands to encourage young people to stay in the health insurance system, eliminate the member level rating and return to simpler to understand and easier to administer single, two-party and family rates; and return the definition of full time employment to 40 hours per week (currently defined as 30 hours in the Affordable Care Act.)
Long term, Lyon recommends more transparency in the health care system via providing comparative data on health costs, quality, infection, morbidity and mortality rates inside facilities; promoting Best Practices and/or Centers of Excellence for health care services and greatly reducing the rate of infection within our hospitals, modernizing the operations of our health system through improvements like more e-prescribing, common electronic standards for medical records and common claims forms; Pay for Performance; reducing waste, fraud and abuse; Medical Malpractice reform and monitoring of the impact of the ongoing consolidation of hospital systems, other health care providers and insurance carriers.
Lyon also encourages a discussion on the future of Medicaid, including allowing states to take the Medicaid expansion funds and permit citizens to use those funds to buy private insurance through the Exchange, rather than being forced into Medicaid; and allowing block-grant Medicaid funds so that the states can decide how to restructure the benefits to fit their state’s needs.
Author: Scott Lyon
Source: SBAM
Date: 6/25/2015
