Don Nickles: “This amendment is vitally important for small business. This bill, the underlying bill, says employers beware, we are…”

“This amendment is vitally important for small business. This bill, the underlying bill, says employers beware, we are coming after you because we do not exempt employers. Interestingly enough, we exempt Federal employees, we exempt Medicare, we exempt government plans, but we do not exempt private plans. Anybody who has a private plan, employers beware because they can sue you and they can sue the plan. Oh, I know we came up with a little cover, and maybe you can put the liability under the form of a designated decisionmaker, and they can assume it. But guess what? They are going to charge the employer for every dime they think it is going to cost. And my guess is, the designated decisionmaker will want to have enough cover so they don't go bankrupt, so they are going to charge a little extra to make sure they have enough to protect them from the liability and the costs that are associated with this plan. The cost of health care is exploding. Health care costs went up 12.3 percent nationally last year. They are supposed to go up more than that this year. That is not for small businesses. The cost of health care for small business is 20, 21, 22 percent, and that is without the cost of this bill. CBO estimates the cost of this bill is 4.2 percent. But if you assume there is going to be a whole lot of defensive medicine, you can probably double that figure. And with the liability, you are probably looking at another 9 or 10 percent on top of the 20 percent for small business.”