QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT HEALTH CARE MANDATES

1. Do mandates and rising health costs really affect employers? 

As shown by the 2006 uninsured numbers, rising costs really do affect employers and, more importantly, workers.  In the 2005-2006 period, over two million Americans lost their health coverage.  Most of these Americans were employees of small businesses who simply could not afford to offer health coverage. Significantly, most small firms have no other choice but to purchase state regulated health coverage at a much higher price -- driven by the 1,800 state mandates.  In fact, a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that the costs associated with state and federal mandates and regulation make up 15 percent of the increase in health care costs. As a result, costs for small employers are far higher than those of their larger employer and union counterparts. The numbers say it all, rising costs cause employers to drop coverage.


2. Shouldn’t the government require health plans and employers to provide certain coverage, follow administrative procedures, and do business with certain providers?  Aren't these protections for consumers?

Though well intended, government health mandates have unintended consequences for consumers and patients.  Coverage mandates lock in certain standards of care, which are very quickly superseded by new medical technologies and care practices of health care providers. The average life-span of a medical device is two years.  As such, in the time it takes for a mandate to be written into law, it may well be out of date.  In addition, as each mandate increases the cost of health benefits, employers may limit or reduce health care coverage.  For smaller employers, higher costs may keep them from offering health coverage at all, increasing the number of consumers and patients who have no health insurance. 


3. But don’t mandates protect patients from insurance companies? Would health care companies really provide benefits and coverage that are good for consumers if the government didn’t force them?

If health plans don’t meet consumer demands, they won’t keep their customers.  Patients and consumers, and the employers who provide their care, demand quality of care, choice, and innovation in health care delivery.  The free market is a dictatorship – a dictatorship of hundreds of millions of consumers. In the time Congress debated PBOR, health plans had already increased access, choices, and benefits, not because the government forced them to, but because it’s good business.