It's time to separate fact from fiction.
Health care reform remains a hot topic, as shown in Tony Gagliardi's Jan. 13 column, "Repeal: the New Year's Resolution Congress Should Keep."
In the wake of the vote by the U.S. House of Representatives to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, it's important to separate fact from fiction. They claim it hurts small businesses and the economic recovery, but the evidence suggests otherwise. Sharp rhetoric attacking health care reform may get headlines, but it does nothing to lower the cost of health insurance for America's 28 million small businesses.
Gagliardi's piece blasted the new health care law for increasing costs on small businesses, yet the cost of health insurance has already had disastrous consequences for small business owners across the country, forcing many to cut or forgo coverage, or lay off employees or put off growing their business in order to keep it. A study we released based upon research by MIT economist Jonathan Gruber found that without reform, employers would pay nearly $2.4 trillion in health care costs for their workers over the next decade.
Such dramatic costs would slash 178,000 small business jobs and $51.2 billion in profits in the same period. The study found that reform could reduce this burden by up to one-third. The status quo wasn't sustainable before the ACA was passed and still isn't, which is why health care reform's success is so critical to small businesses' survival.
To read the entire article, link here.