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Local Communities Ask Congress To Repeal The HIT

With the health insurance tax (HIT) included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) scheduled to take effect in a few short months, we have heard from hundreds of small business owners and their employees across the U.S. who are engaging on the issue. Through local roundtable discussions, meetings with Members of Congress and their staff and press coverage highlighting local concerns, small business constituents are raising awareness about how this new tax will impact local jobs and communities.

And policy makers are taking notice. Bipartisan legislation to repeal the HIT has 199 cosponsors in the U.S. House and 19 in the U.S. Senate. Last week, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback penned a letter to Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Representative Fred Upton (R-Mich.) voicing his concern about how the HIT “increase[s] health care costs, kill[s] jobs, and hinder[s] our economic recovery.”

We are making good progress, but time isn’t on our side. Nothing brings this issue to life like hearing from real people – small business owners and their employees – about how the HIT will affect them. Over the past few months, small business owners and local community leaders from Alaska to Arkansas have come together to discuss the impact of the HIT. In Louisiana, for example, small business owner Dickie Brennan told the Times-Picayune he is worried escalating premiums will force him to cut other employee benefits, including programs to help workers buy their first house or go to school. And in Colorado, another small business owner told The Pueblo Chieftain they are “barely keeping their head above water,” and cannot afford to pay more for health care coverage for their employees. It is stories like this that make the situation real.

With your Member of Congress home for the legislative recess, we encourage you to reach out to him or her to tell your story and emphasize how the HIT will impact you. The HIT will raise more than $100 billion in 10 years, which will come almost exclusively from small businesses and their employees. Join our efforts and learn what is happening in your state to ensure small businesses remain an engine for economic growth.