Small businesses are very mindful of their spending especially when it comes to healthcare. The Health Insurance Tax that’s included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is raising eyebrows among business owners.
News 5’s Katie Gauthier went to Grand Island to learn about some of the issues raised.
This may be a national issue, but it still affects local businesses.
Stop the HIT Coalition hosted the healthcare roundtable Wednesday.
Grand Island area business owners and community leaders met Wednesday at the Chicken Coop in Grand Island to discuss the Health Insurance Tax and how it will affect their businesses.
“I think it should be a concern to everyone that’s a citizen in this country,” said Ken Steinbeck, Steinbeck Insurance.
He’s talking about the Health Insurance Tax that’s included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
“We’re here to listen to what they have to say about the uh uh potential taxes that are gonna flow through the insurance companies down to us,” said Dramco Tool owner Justin Pfenning.
Business owners and community leaders gathered today to call for a repeal of the Health Insurance Tax.
“Because as individual business owners and tax payers, we need to ban together so that our voices are heard more loudly in Washington DC,” said Steinbeck.
Business owners are saying it will raise the cost of small business health insurance premiums.
“Right now the way the law is written, employers aren’t gonna want to hire and it’s gonna hurt the economy,” said Essential Personnel President Travis Powell.
With the HIT, small business owners will have to pay about $500 extra per employee meaning providing health insurance to employees may become difficult.
“It’s going to decrease the amount of jobs that are available and ultimately cost the economy a lot more and cost everyone more with the less jobs out there, people won’t be able to put food on the table,” said Powell.
“What we don’t want to get is an extra tax levy to us,” said Pfenning.
And the small businesses understand that banning together is their best chance of being heard.
And there’s ways you can get involved.
One of the things they’re doing to heave their voice heard, grab one of these, record their issues and send it to their local representative to help get their message across.
Will the tax affect the Tri Cities?
“The costs to employers is going to increase dramatically and it’s just ya know unemployment is just very low for Central Nebraska than the rest of the nation. And with a law like this it could increase that dramatically,” Powell said.
If you want to learn more you can visit StopTheHit.com. The Health Insurance Tax was created to tax insurance companies