91视频

Editor’s note: The following column was submitted to the 91视频 by Sen. Jeff Merkley in response to a story reported online Dec. 22. The story is about an amendment Merkley introduced to the U.S. Senate’s health care reform bill that would require contractors with more than five workers to provide health insurance to their employees.

Like lambs to the slaughter. That’s how many small business owners feel whenever their health insurance contracts come up for negotiations. They don’t have the market clout to bring down their prices and often pay substantially more for the same service as their larger competitors.

This hits their bottom line two ways: first through the direct expenses of paying for insurance, and second by making them less competitive than the big guys, or those that don’t provide insurance at all.

Despite the challenges, thousands of Oregon small businesses go the extra mile to provide health insurance to their employees. Those business owners tell me that providing health insurance is about more than employee retention. They feel it is their responsibility to their employees and the communities where they live.

One of my primary objectives during this health reform debate is to make it easier for small business owners who provide insurance to continue to provide it.聽 After all, if they don’t, we all pay the costs through higher taxes.

The legislation before the Senate, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, puts the needs of small businesses front and center.

First, it creates state-based exchanges 鈥� insurance marketplaces –聽 to allow small businesses to enter larger purchasing pools and use their improved economies of scale to get better deals.The original bill in my committee gave only employers with fewer than 10 employees access to these exchanges. I passed an amendment in committee and later worked with Senate leadership to make sure businesses with fewer than 100 employees were immediately eligible for these exchanges when states get them up and running in 2014.

Second, the bill includes a new small business tax credit that will cover up to half of the cost of premiums for businesses of fewer than 25 employees.

Third, the bill prohibits discrimination on the basis of health history.聽 A single employee with diabetes or high blood pressure can have a more distorting affect on premiums for a business with fifteen employees than one with 150.聽 By banning this practice, we will prevent insurers from raising rates on a small business simply because one employee was unlucky enough to get sick.

Right now, businesses are hamstrung by insurance costs.聽 Health care is a huge burden for small businesses and makes our larger businesses less competitive abroad.聽 The Senate bill addresses this by making health care more affordable.聽 In addition, it levels the unfair playing field between firms that provide health benefits and those that don’t by requiring all employers with 50 or more employees to either provide coverage to their employees or defray the cost to taxpayers of subsidizing their employees’ health insurance.

While this framework will work for most industries, it simply doesn’t work for the construction industry, where 90 percent of firms employ fewer than 20 workers, and those contractors providing health care bid for jobs against firms that don’t day in and day out.聽 To level the playing field in construction, therefore, I authored an amendment that would lower the threshold for construction firms to those with more than five employees and payrolls of more than $250,000 (about half of the industry’s employers). This amendment ensures that when bids are opened, a job is won or lost based upon the ability of the contractor to build with quality and innovation, not on whether they provide health insurance to their workers or not.

I am pleased that this amendment was supported by organizations representing well over half of construction industry employers, including SMACNA, NECA, the Mechanical Contractors Association of America, the Finishing Contractors Association, and The Association of Union Contractors.

I understand that many contractors who do not currently offer insurance oppose this provision.聽 But I do not believe our current health care bill should disadvantage the many responsible employers, both union and non-union, who already provide health insurance for their employees.聽 This construction amendment, coupled with the many new structures to help small businesses afford health care coverage, creates a level playing field for contractors.

Finally, I recognize that times are tough for the construction industry.聽 Every day, I’m working hard to turn this economy around from efforts to reform our credit markets and open up private sector construction financing, to working to push through more transportation and water infrastructure funding, to fighting for new weatherization funding as part of a jobs initiative.聽 I have been prodding the Obama Administration for much more aggressive action to stem the foreclosure crisis so we can re-start home building.聽 All of these efforts will create the kind of construction opportunities so desperately needed to put businesses and people back to work.聽 And it is worth noting that my level playing field amendment to the health bill will not take effect until 2014.

American businesses can compete with anyone in the world when the rules are fair.聽 I will do everything I can to help small businesses remain competitive while they help their employees stay healthy and secure.