The Senate Finance Committee Oct. 13 approved the America’s Healthy Future Act by a vote of 14-9, passing the bill out of the committee.
Before the vote, ABC sent a letter to Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) expressing a desire for health care reform but opposing the current bill due to the employer mandates.
“There can be no acceptable way to mandate employer-provided coverage,” ABC stated. “Pay-or-play mandates, percentage-of-payroll mandates and “free-rider” or “anti-crowd out” mandates are all hostile to employers. Stacking additional burdens on America’s small businesses will only serve to cause further financial turmoil during these tough economic times.”
America’s Healthy Future Act will be combined with another health care reform bill passed July 15 by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. The combined bill is expected to reach the Senate floor next week. In the meantime, the U.S. House of Representatives is working to combine three different versions of their health care proposals into a single bill.
To help members better understand the health care issue, ABC is offering an online toolkit that includes side-by-side comparisons of proposed health care plans; an explanatory fact sheet; and ABC’s position on health care reform; updates on the bills’ progress on the Hill; and a newsletter article template.
Since calls, emails and face-to-face meetings are the most effective methods of communication with members of Congress, the toolkit also contains a telephone script and links to directly email elected representatives.
For more information or to access the toolkit, visit
www.abc.org/healthcare.