Press Release

Congressman Young Discusses Impact of Health Insurance Tax with Iowa Small Business Owners

Des Moines, IA (June 19, 2015) – Congressman David Young joined local small business owners today in Des Moines to discuss how the health insurance tax, or HIT, is impacting local businesses and employees. The event was hosted by the Stop the HIT Coalition, a broad based group representing the nation’s small business owners, their employees and the self-employed.

“I decided to co-sponsor the bill to repeal the HIT because we need to do everything we can to make health insurance affordable,” said Congressman Young. “The burden of this tax will eventually force small businesses to go out of business, and we need to do what we can to support these businesses owners, who are the lifeblood of our economy.”

The HIT is an often-overlooked tax in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that significantly drives up health insurance costs for millions of small businesses. The tax amounts to $159 billion in new costs over the next decade, which is almost entirely passed on to small businesses and the self-employed who purchase coverage in the fully insured marketplace. The tax raises the cost of health insurance premiums for families by approximately $500 a year, according to an analysis by former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin.

“It’s my son’s dream to start his own business, and with rising costs of health insurance because of things like the HIT, I worry about how challenging that will be,” said Jeff Ballenger, owner of Jeff’s Wash & Glo and a number of other businesses in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

“As a business owner, I am thankful that Congressman David Young made the initiative to fight for the small business owners in his district,” said Anita Messerschmidt, CEO and owner of EmbarkIT, Inc in West Des Moines. “Small businesses play an important role in economic growth in Iowa, and the health insurance tax threatens the economic prosperity we’ve worked so hard to achieve. We need leadership in Washington to follow Congressman Young’s lead, and fight for small business in Iowa.”

Iowa is home to more than 263,000 small businesses, which employ more than 637,000 workers. According to research by the National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation, the HIT will jeopardize between 152,000 to 286,000 private-sector jobs across the U.S. by 2023, and reduce real GDP by as much as $20 billion to $33 billion over the same period.

Congressman Young is a cosponsor of H.R. 928, a bipartisan bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would repeal the HIT and permanently relieve small businesses of this burdensome tax.