WASHINGTON — Ahead of Wednesday’s House vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, business executives testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that “Obamacare” will have negative economic impacts.
Mary Miller, the CEO of Ohio-based janitorial service company JANCOA, said 98 percent of her employees are full-time. But the employer mandate, which says companies with 50 or more employees must provide insurance coverage for those employees, might make it financially impossible for her to maintain that number.
Miller estimates paying for each full-time employee’s health care coverage would cost the company $1.4 million, which the company can’t afford.
“My employees prefer full-time employment, and I prefer to hire full-time workers. However, one of the few options that I am now forced to consider is reducing the majority of my team members to part-time employment,” she said.
Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said this is a move that will happen in businesses nationwide. In his opening statement, Issa said the health care law raises the costs of labor and will significantly hinder job creation. He said that according to the Congressional Budget Office, Obamacare would be to blame for 800,000 fewer jobs by the end of the decade.
But Issa’s statement doesn’t tell the whole story. The Congressional Budget Office said the law would affect “the amount of labor workers choose to supply,” meaning those 800,000 people wouldn’t be losing their jobs–they would be choosing not to work.
Not all business owners are convinced health care reform will kill jobs.
Daniel Wolf, the CEO of Massachusetts-based Cape Air, testified that Gov. Mitt Romney’s health care reform didn’t stunt economic growth. The Massachusetts health care plan served as a template for Obamacare.
Wolf said the transition to Romneycare was seamless, and his company has added 15 percent more jobs since its implementation.
Massachusetts’ unemployment rate is 6 percent, one of the lowest in the country.
Though health care costs increased 5 percent last year, he said, that’s nowhere near the 15-to-20 percent increases they saw annually before Romney’s reform.
“Health care costs have not spiraled as a result of this plan,” Wolf said.
Ranking Member Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, called the hearing and Wednesday’s repeal vote a “needless exercise,” given that the Supreme Court ruled the health care bill constitutional.
“It is difficult to imagine a more monumental waste of time,” he said.