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.
