Coalition backs Baker's health insurance assessment
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The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation says a "flawed premise" led to the Baker administration's per-employee assessments on businesses that don't meet health insurance requirements.
Close to two dozen health care providers, faith groups, community organizations, labor unions and advocacy groups voiced support for Gov. Charlie Baker's controversial proposal to levy per-employee assessments on businesses that don't meet proposed health insurance requirements in a Wednesday letter to House and Senate budget writers.
The organizations, in a letter to Ways and Means Committee chairs Rep. Brian Dempsey and Sen. Karen Spilka, argued the "employer responsibility provision" that Baker's proposal is based on was a critical component to the state's 2006 health care access law and is equally critical to keeping quality care accessible and affordable.
"The vast majority of Massachusetts employers do the right thing by offering coverage to their employees. We believe holding employers responsible for offering affordable health insurance coverage to their employees is an essential aspect of continued and successful healthcare reform," the group wrote in its letter. "If we are to continue leading the nation on healthcare reform, we must ensure employers do not shirk their responsibility to provide affordable coverage, thereby shifting costs to state health care programs."
Coalition members include Boston Medical Center, Health Care for All, the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, Mass. Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, Mass. Law Reform Institute, Mass. Public Health Association, Lynn Community Health Center, the Boston Center for Independent Living, and local chapters of the Service Employees International Union.
Baker's proposal, filed in January along with his fiscal year 2018 budget plan, would impose a $2,000 per employee assessment on companies with 11 or more employees that don't offer health coverage or that do not insure at least 80 percent of their full-time employees.
The administration's proposal is intended to stem the flow of full-time workers who choose to enroll in MassHealth rather than their employer's plan, a cost driver that's straining the entire state budget and consuming funds that could be invested elsewhere.
MassHealth reached an all-time high enrollment -- covering a projected 1.93 million people in fiscal 2017 -- putting major pressure on state finances.
The assessment is projected to generate $300 million over the last six months of fiscal 2018 and would generate as much as $585 million when in effect for a full year, according to Baker administration estimates.
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