Posted on 07/15/2009 8:28:55 AM PDT by reaganaut1
House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled sweeping health-care legislation that would hit all but the smallest businesses with a penalty equal to 8% of payroll if they fail to provide health insurance to workers.
The House bill, which also would impose new taxes on the wealthy estimated to bring in more than $544 billion over a decade, came as lawmakers in the Senate raced against a self-imposed deadline of this week to introduce a bill in time for action this summer.
Senators face a tougher battle because they are striving for a bipartisan bill. Key senators are weighing a combination of several more-modest fund-raising provisions, including some new fees on health-care industries.
Under the House measure, employers with payrolls exceeding $400,000 a year would have to provide health insurance or pay the 8% penalty. Employers with payrolls between $250,000 and $400,000 a year would pay a smaller penalty, and those less than $250,000 would be exempt. Certain small firms would get tax credits to help buy coverage.
The relatively low thresholds for penalties triggered the sharpest criticism yet from employer groups, who said the burden on small business is too high and doesn't do enough to help them expand insurance coverage.
"This bill costs too much, it covers too few and it has way too much government involvement," said Michelle Dimarob, a lobbyist with the National Federation of Independent Business, the main trade group for small firms. "Small business doesn't want any of those things."
According to 2006 data from the federation, businesses with between five and nine workers, representing about one million employers, had an average payroll of around $375,000 a year. A report from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that only about half of firms with three to nine workers offered health benefits in 2008.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I hate this current government.
Its is everything America was founded AGAINST.
Liberals make me sick.
” Patriotic Americans will choose #1 or #2.
Sincerely,
Joe Biden “
And how many jobs has Joe Biden created?
I mean other than late-night comedy hosts who stay employed on his many gaffes?
This should be the GOP slogan in 2010: The next jobs the Democrats kill could be yours.
GOP needs to turn that around ...
“I think you are correct. Combine this with all of the other anti-competitive, tax everything, anti energy develop, etc. initiatives and Obama looks like he is deliberately trying to collapse the economy. It sound a lot like the Cloward-Piven Strategy to bring about a new society and governance for Dear Leader. “
We can out-Alinsky Obama with the Tea Party grassroots conservative response. Obama’s technique is able to destroy conservative elites, but it wont destroy belief in freedom among the people. We need to be most active now than ever.
What is a small business to 0bama? under 500, 200? under 30?
Between cap and trade and health care bye bye jobs.
How much SIMPLER it would be to just OUTLAW “insurance” for health cost purposes.
The tax on the wealthy is just a scam to get this passed.
No way the wealthy could afford intensive care for every illegal alien with the sniffles, not to mention Oprah’s slick new “personal trainer”.
Within one year, the entire tax burden for this fiasco will “face shortfalls”, need “minor adjustments”, and fall on the middle class.
You know it, I know it, and all the Libs know it.
The only people who don’t know it are the middle class rubes still thinking, “gollee, free health care and the rich have to pay, SIGN ME UP!”
Yes, Zero is watching events in Honduras closely.
The Obamanoids will not be satisfied until unemployment is over 20% (and climbing) - and damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead into economic third and fourth world status, America.
So long American middle class, it’s been good to be ya!
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