Boehner Warns Dems’ Government Takeover of Health Care Will Cost Jobs and Put Small Businesses at Risk
Boehner: “If you put an eight percent tax on payroll, guess what? Employers are going to hire less people, and most of my constituents are asking, where are the jobs?”
Washington,
Jul 21, 2009 -
House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH), a former small businessman, delivered remarks today on the House floor about how the Democrats’ government takeover of healthcare will destroy jobs and hurt small businesses. Boehner, who ran a small packaging and plastics business in Ohio prior to his election to Congress, pointed out that the Democrats’ plan will substantially increase the financial burden on small businesses and force at least 23 million Americans off their employer-provided private health insurance and onto government rolls. Full video and transcript of Boehner’s remarks follow:
“Mr. Speaker, before I came to Congress, I ran a small business. And in that small business I offered a health insurance benefit to my employees, I offered a pension benefit to my employees. Both of these plans were a result of a 1974 federal law called ERISA, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, that allows employers to offer health plans to their employees and pension plans to their employees across state lines.
“Over the years, employers now provide health insurance to their employees to the total of about 132 million Americans who today get their health insurance through their employer. But in the Democrats’ health care plan, I noticed this morning in an article from the Wall Street Journal, there’s a provision in there that in their bill, after five years, all employer plans will have to be approved by the Department of Labor and the new Health Choices Commissioner who will set federal standards for what is an acceptable health plan.
“Now, these employers are providing these plans to their employees, they’re trying to provide a benefit their employees want and need, and now the federal government is going to decide what your health plan is going to look like. I would suggest that a lot of employers in America are going to look at this and decide, you know, this really isn’t worth it. And under their plan, if you’re an employer and you don’t provide health insurance, you have to pay an eight percent payroll tax to the federal government. Eight percent.
“Now, most employers probably pay more than this for their health care, and so as a result, I would think a lot of employers are just going to pay the eight percent tax and allow their employees to be shoved into the government-run plan. According to the Congressional Budget Office, some 23 million Americans would lose their benefits from their employers and be forced into government health care. According to the Lewin Group, 114 million Americans would be forced into the government plan.
“This is not what the American people want. And if you put an eight percent tax on payroll, guess what? Employers are going to hire less people, and most of my constituents are asking, where are the jobs?
“And if you tax employment through this health care plan or you tax employment under this crazy national energy tax, you’re going to create less jobs in America and at a time when we need jobs and we need our economy going again, we don’t need to be taxing employers and taxing employment because we’re going to get a lot less of it. I yield back.”
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