Alexander: Tennessee’s Small Businesses Hurt Most by Job-Killing Obamacare Taxes
Report says 57 percent of jobs lost due to Obamacare insurance tax will be from small businesses
MARYVILLE, October 7 – U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today made the following statement regarding a report that tax on health insurance required by the president’s health care law could reduce private sector employment by nearly 300,000 jobs by 2023, with 57 percent of those losses coming from small businesses in Tennessee and other states:
“Too often I hear from a small-business owner in Nashville or Bristol that Obamacare is forcing them to let go of employees or raise prices on customers to meet their bottom line—all bad for business. Hard-working Tennesseans are fed up, and Republicans want to put in place policies that move us step by step toward more freedom, more choices, and lower costs—repairing the damage Obamacare has done and preventing future damage.”
The report released by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) says that an Obamacare tax on health insurance policies, which gets passed to small businesses and families in the form of higher premiums, will raise the cost of employer-sponsored insurance by 2 to 3 percent, which could ultimately mean an extra $5,000 per family by 2020. This new tax went into effect on January 1, 2014, and NFIB’s research indicates that it will reduce private sector employment by 152,000 to 286,000 jobs in 2023, and 57 percent of those losses will come from small businesses.
In May, Alexander introduced the Certify It Act with Reps. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.) and Diane Black (R-Tenn.) to require annual studies to assess the impact Obamacare will have on small business health insurance premiums and jobs. If Obamacare is having a negative impact on either small business health insurance premiums or jobs, the Certify It Act delays the employer mandate, which is an additional Obamacare burden on small businesses, for the following year.
Last month, Alexander and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) released a joint report dispelling eight major claims from the Obama administration on the president’s health care law. Among the myths uncovered was the claim on the president’s website that Obamacare “reduces health care costs…[and] is improving our economic competitiveness[.]”
Read the full report HERE.
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For access to this release and Ranking Member Alexander’s other statements, click here.
