Health Care Reform Roundtable

Last week, I hosted a roundtable discussion on the impact and implications of the health care reform law recently enacted by Congress. Our panelists included two Certified Public Accountants who have worked extensively with small businesses on tax and benefits issues, a human resources consultant with more than 20 years’ experience in human resources and benefits consulting, and a staff physician from Mercy Suburban Hospital in Montgomery County.

The facts presented by the panelists were sobering. Even now, months after the final passage of the law, the full implications of the health care bill are still largely a mystery to business owners and doctors.

I’ve spent the last several weeks traveling around the District and meeting with small business owners and managers. During these meetings, a common theme has emerged: Washington has created an uncertainty surrounding the possibility of tax increases, regulatory changes and government intervention that leaves businesses unable to plan for the future. Before businesses can make decisions to hire more workers, invest in new equipment or open a new facility, they must be able to accurately forecast the costs associated with these measures.

Like all of the other legislation that has come out of Washington in the last year and a half, the health care law complicates and confuses business owners. As one of the panelists pointed out, the law leaves nearly the entire implementation and interpretation of the legislation to the discretion of the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Businesses must now wait as the Secretary’s office releases specific regulations on various individual provisions of the 1,000+ page bill.

Another important issue raised during our discussion was the shortage of primary care physicians and how the health care law will exacerbate this shortage. According to Dr. Joe DiMino, Medical Director of Montgomery County, 800,000 doctors struggle to treat 250 million patients with insurance. This health care law will not only increase the number of patients per doctor, but lower Medicare reimbursements and create more government bureaucracy that will drive away doctors. That will leave fewer primary care physicians to care for more patients.

The health care law failed to address the fundamental problem: rising health care costs. Meanwhile, panelists expressed fears that the bill is bad for our economy, bad for our health care system and bad for America. Looking forward, we need to make a proactive effort – in the very near term -- to identify some of the more onerous regulations being imposed by on businesses and doctors and roll back many of the damaging provisions of the health care law. With our economy in its current condition, we cannot afford to put this additional strain of burdensome and costly new regulations on small business owners.