Overhaul Divides Business and Its Traditional GOP Allies

Source: WSJ

Business is parting from its traditional allies in the Republican Party on health care as companies and big corporate lobbyists lend tentative support to a congressional overhaul that conservative lawmakers staunchly oppose. The rift mirrors a similar divide on other issues, including immigration and climate change, where many companies have backed legislative action that Republican lawmakers oppose. But the health-care debate, in particular, casts a spotlight on the split in the longstanding alliance between economic conservatives and the business community. Republican lawmakers are digging in to oppose the overhaul effort as a big-spending government intrusion. Many companies, on the other hand, cite soaring costs to explain why they continue to back the congressional work under way to revamp the health-care system, despite misgivings over a range of provisions.

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Just as Sen. Baucus was preparing to unveil his plan, the Business Roundtable, a lobbying group that represents major U.S. multinationals, released a study arguing that congressional inaction was not an option. The study found that without any changes to the current system, the cost to insure a single employee, including the person's own out-of-pocket expenses, would jump to more than $28,000 a year by 2019, from around $11,000 a year now.

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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents about three million businesses of all sizes, has run television ads opposing the Democratic-led health-care push. And the chamber, like many other big business groups in Washington, has many concerns about the Baucus bill, particularly the taxes it proposes to help pay for its $774 billion Congressional Budget Office price tag over 10 years. But the chamber applauded much of the Baucus bill as the first proposal "that will actually...get health-care costs under control."

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Republican lawmakers predicted that businesses would soon sour on the Senate health-care package as Democrats heap on various amendments... Republicans have been particularly furious at the pharmaceutical industry, whose early willingness to cooperate with the White House and with Sen. Baucus proved crucial in keeping the push for an overhaul alive this summer. In June, the drug makers' lobbying group, PhRMA, cut a surprise deal with Mr. Baucus, offering to slash $80 billion in drug costs in exchange for a range of protections from the government. That deal was shortly followed by the announcement of $150 billion in concessions by the hospital industry.


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This is a point that some of us raised here: that business should be the first one to support a universal health care so that they can concentrate on... doing business and not providing access to healthcare. This has been one reason why so many "American" cars are manufactured in Canada: to cut health care expenses.

It would eliminate one of the benefits they now have to either manage or pay someone to manage.

I would think the opportunity to dump a benefit while not giving up the benefit for the employee would be a big selling point for single payer.

Large companies can afford the care. What they fear is the start-up small competitor who, right now, can't offer the benefits.

is for you and I to shoulder the cost.

We could get this done. If they were economically rational, they would all push for single-payer. Sure, their taxes would go up, but they don't pay taxes anyway. They might miss the tax deductibility of employee coverage, but I'm sure most would find other uses for the billions they would save.