ARM Industry Weighs Impact of Health Care Reform on Business

It’s widely argued among some public health care experts that including a government sponsored plan as part of any U.S. health care reform legislation will entice employers to dump their employee coverage, forcing privately insured workers into a government run plan.  Less public debate, however, has focused on mandates on individuals to buy coverage or for employers to provide it or pay a fee to help their employees get insurance.  

All of the health care reform bills introduced in House or Senate committees this summer call for some kind of employer responsibility and public health care exchange, said Larry McNeely, a health care advocate for U.S. PIRG. Although the Senate Finance Committee has yet to introduce a bill, he expects it also will include some kind of employer responsibility.  

“Some kind of employer responsibility will be in all the bills," McNeely said. “If you don’t’ cover your employees, the government will have to and businesses will have to cover some of the cost.”

Most debt collectors and buyers already provide health care coverage to their employees for competitive reasons (“Health Care Reform Bills Would Hit ARM Firms as Businesses, Rather than as Collectors,” July 17), so the impact from an employer coverage mandate could be minimal to the accounts receivable management industry.

ACA International’s Government Affairs Director Adam Peterman said the association’s government affairs staff is still watching the August debate intently and anxiously awaits a Senate Finance Committee proposal.

If employers are required to provide coverage, whatever the final tab, a Heritage Foundation health care policy expert said it will be picked up by workers and consumers.

“Eventually, they will find a way to pass the cost back to employees,” said J.D. Foster, a senior fellow with the Heritage Foundation’s Thomas A Rowe Institute for Economic Policy.   Some companies, he said, will even forego growing sales or adding workers to avoid the coverage mandate if small businesses are exempt from coverage mandates.

“You’re going to have a lot of businesses with 49 employees do everything they can to keep from getting any bigger,” Foster said.