Don Day is also worried. Day owns eight small businesses in McKinney, Texas, including two restaurants, a boutique hotel and several retail shops.
Although he employs 125 workers, he offers health care for just a few key employees. Just an extra $200 a month per employee for health care could set him back hundreds of thousands of dollars a year — a cost he can’t afford.
“It’s not just me, it’s every small business across this land,” he said. “A lot of small businesses are going to go out of business.”
(From an Associated Press article)Â Â As business owners across the country weigh the new law, they’re looking to Massachusetts for harbingers of things to come.
Massachusetts’ law, which mandates near-universal coverage and requires that businesses with 11 or more workers offer insurance, provided the blueprint for the health law signed by President Barack Obama. Massachusetts employers who don’t comply face annual fines of $295 per worker.
While there’s been plenty of grumbling among business owners that the state law has squeezed them financially during a tough recession, there’s little evidence the law is forcing employers to close or sending them fleeing for the border. Other businesses have welcomed the law and business leaders helped guarantee its passage.
Drawing parallels between the state and national laws is tricky. While both share many of the same tenets — requiring businesses to shoulder more of the burden of health coverage — there are major differences.
The national law doesn’t require businesses offer insurance but hits employers with 50 or more workers with an annual $2,000-per-employee fee if the company doesn’t insure them and the government ends up subsidizing their workers’ coverage.
The national law also grants tax credits for businesses with 25 or fewer workers with average annual wages below $50,000, which Democrats say that will benefit 3.6 million business nationwide. And beginning in 2014, businesses with up to 100 employees will be able to pool their employees in state-created insurance exchanges to increase their negotiating clout with insurance companies — a move supporters say could aid 29 million businesses.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g0ZR7xK3OfnUMkC7pOMMHB6Kl38gD9EPFRI80
