Rep. Greg Walden (R), chairman
of the NRCC, was one of a number of House members who spoke.
RNC Transcript (corrected):
- Hi, I’m Gary Floeter from Cookeville, Tennessee. I’ve been
in business for 45 years, started out the American dream with four
employees and I’ve grown to seventy something employees at this time.
We have always offered major medical coverage to our employees because
we’re looking for the most competitive environment to hire folks. We
want the best of the best. Currently, we have HRA plan, high deductible
plan, which lowers our cost. Under the current administration’s plans
we are being assessed a tax or a fee—define the difference between
a tax or a fee—because we self ensure our deductible. In 2016, the
definition of a small business will be redefined to the federal
standard, in which case we will no longer be to offer the same benefits
we’re offering today. I feel like I’m being punished for providing the
level of care that I have provided to my employees. Why even put a
limit on the deductible? Employees need to have skin in the game. Since
I began business some 45 years ago, right now the uncertainty and the
added expense is creating the inability for me to plan for the future
and on margins that I work with in a mechanical contracting industry
are razor thin, these additional costs are very, very unpredictable. I
would ask, if possible that these provisions be rescinded and we can go
back to being able to offer benefits to our employees unencumbered.
- My name is Diane Hunter and I’m a franchise owner and I own
five offices in Southeastern Ohio. I employee over 300 people. From
2010-2012 my home health business grew by 6%. In 2016, or …in 2013 my
sales declined by 6.5% due to the enforcement of the Affordable Care
Act. Commercial insurances had to reevaluate the
reauthorization process with the Obamacare changes. As a result the
number of visits authorized significantly dropped, causing a serious
financial impact to my company. Fewer patients have been approved under
the Medicaid plan are now being scrutinized for home care services.
There has been no increase in Medicaid reimbursement in my state for
over 10 years. Our Medicare reimbursement has been cut the past two
years
and that’s what we have to look forward to again for the following two
years. So an additionally 4% decrease in Medicare reimbursement. At
this moment, we’re trying to improve care and in order to improve
care, I need to add quality assurance staff, hire more nurses, aides
and therapists to take care of these patients at home. But yet I need
to include these employees in my health insurance plan in order to meet
the requirements of the ObamaCare employer mandate. These are all
additional expenses that are being incurred yet I am being expected to
be reimbursed less and less.
- Good afternoon. My name is Diane Iser; I am from Hoffman
Estates, Illinois and I’m a very grateful 11 year breast cancer
survivor. I had my current policy cancelled October 1st due to
Obamacare
and reinstated December 20th. And I am wondering how I am going to
retain and
keep the doctors who saved my life, at the end of this year, when my
deductible will increase 300 percent, my premium will increase 50
percent, and every time I use the emergency room, whether I've met my
deductable or not, I will pay $500 versus the $75 I pay now.
And I ask, what gives your government the right to move you into
something that is clearly unaffordable.
- I’m Sarah Schulte from Gainesville, Georgia, where I
recently
moved to work for a local faith based nonprofit that does human
trafficking work. And I chose this field because it is something I am
very
passionate about even knowing that I would not be receiving healthcare.
Unfortunately because of ObamaCare I am in a situation now where
to explore all of my options, I'm putting my identify at risk with an
insecure website, and I’m also
concerned about the fact that I will be penalized if I choose, as an
educated
citizen, to not be insured. So those are some of my very
pressing concerns, and I’m in the very demographic that the president
has insisted he is trying to help.
- Good afternoon, my name is Larry Katz and I am from
Metairie, Louisiana. I also have had an opportunity to live the
American dream, starting a small business 18 years ago now and opening
a
chain of diners in the New Orleans area. We’ve offered a full-range of
benefits to our employees from day one, including health insurance,
life insurance, dental, paid vacations, holidays, etc. We were forced
this past December 31st to cancel our health insurance and stop
offering it to all of our employees, including myself, and let everyone
fend for
themselves. The reason why we cancelled it was because had I offered
insurance, none of my employees would have been eligible for a subsidy.
And the sad thing to that is today there are 10 less employees that
have health insurance than had them before Obamacare started at the
beginning of this year. So 10 less people have health insurance.
Additionally, I’m looking to cut costs because starting next year, I’ll
have over a $70,000 penalty and I need to get that money from somewhere
so I need to lower our costs, so I’ll be reducing benefits, I’ll be
reducing staffing, and any plans of expansion is off the table.
- Hi my name’s Aaron Hirsch, I’m from Slidell, Louisiana. I
am an IT contractor. I’m self employed so I’m in the individual
healthcare market. And I had a policy for my family and myself, and I
got a
letter informing me that my policy was being cancelled because it
didn't
meet the minimum requirements for the Affordable Care Act. And the
policy I’ve received as a replacement is now, it's going to cost me 80%
more
in premiums which works out to about $5,500 more a year in premiums
that
I will have to pay for services that I don’t really need and increased
costs that I don’t want to incur.
- Hello, my name is Julie Anderson from St. Cloud,
Minnesota. I’m a family physician in a private practice and I have
concerns about increasing regulations on my practice and as a family
physician, I
just want to take care of patients, that’s all I want to do, and I feel
like over the past few years we’ve had increased burdens and I would
even coin a phrase, “bureaucratization” of my clinic with the
government being in my examination room with my patients. My patients
have
had to travel long ways to see me for visits just to be able to get an
authorization to get a wheeled walker for example. So I would like to
see less regulation in my practice so that I can do the job that I
was trained to do, and that's take good quality patient care at a
reasonable cost.
- Julie Boonstra: Hi. Five years ago I was diagnosed chronic
myelogenous leukemia. At that time I found out that my health insurance
plan was not adequate. So I enrolled in a new plan that fully covered
me. And life has been hard fighting leukemia but my insurance needs
were
met. In October I received a letter telling me that my insurance plan
was being dissolved. I tried to get on the website several times, and
every time it was a failure. For me that means without having insurance
I cannot receive my oral chemotherapy that I need every day in order to
survive. So I ended up enrolling in a private plan where I can at least
get my chemotherapy, but of course I’m paying a higher price now as far
as out of pocket costs and the coverage is just not the same.
- Good Afternoon. My name is Sherri Garner Brumbaugh and I am
President/CEO of Garner Trucking in Finley, Ohio... Our business
started
with one truck with our parents, and now we are at 110 trucks and I
have 160 employees. I am fearful that the Obamacare I will not be able
to provide health insurance for my families, and my families are an
extension of the Garner family. We have been able to provide good
benefits as long as the company has been in existence. I’m fearful that
my competitors will drop their coverage and I will have to do so as
well to stay competitive in the market.
- Hello, my name is Amy Milstead, and I’m from Spring, Texas,
just north of Houston if you know where that’s at. I too am a
second generation business owner; my family has had an automotive
repairs shop collision center and towing center for 41 years. We have
always tried to stay competitive with our competition; we’ve always
tried to offer medical insurance for our employees. Now it is going to
be difficult. We’re experiencing the changes that are going with our
new increases. We are going to renew our policy in July of this year,
and we are already looking at the increases that are coming across the
board. It has caused us to look outside the box; we are looking at self
insured plans, we are looking at partially self insured plans. We don’t
know if this is a time when we need to lay employees off, if we need to
hire more part time employees, how we’re going to pay for this
insurance. We have quit buying the equipment; we are trying to save the
capital towards the medical insurance, all along trying to provide
these things at the demand of meeting the requirements of the lower
deductibles, not going over 9.5% of the employee’s income, no more than
$6,350 out of the pocket for their deductible and their co-pays.
It is
really going to be challenging this year. Thank you for hearing my
story.
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