Support Legislation to Stop Companies From Shifting Health Care Costs to Taxpayers
Employer Fair Share – House Bill 75
Far too many Ohioans are working hard with little to no health care coverage. HB75 (Rep. R. Hagan) will require large employers (1,000 or more employees) to spend at least 8% of their payroll on employee health benefits or pay an equal amount into a state fund. Thirty of the 200-plus large employers operating in Ohio were identified by an Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services report as being guilty of shifting their health care costs onto Ohio taxpayers.
HB75 will reduce the amount taxpayers pay to cover profitable employers’ employee expenses, ease the financial strain states face in growing Medicaid costs and help level the playing field between companies that provide good jobs and benefits and those that don’t. When companies provide insufficient or no worker health insurance coverage, the workers, taxpayers and other businesses are forced to pick up the tab for increased costs to programs such as Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Employer Disclosure
As Ohio’s Medicaid costs continue to soar the state has a responsibility to learn and report if employers have employees and family members who qualify for public health care assistance. This legislation (Rep. R. Hagan) will enable Ohio to make this determination and then identify and report which employers are shifting their health care costs to state taxpayers.
The bill requires the state to collect and disclose the names of
employers of applicants for publicly funded health care
programs like Medicaid, CHIP, HCAP and Healthy Start. In
addition, the state must disclose the total cost to the State of providing public health care benefits for employees and enrolled dependents of each named employer. During the past year, at least 28 states introduced such bills. Legislatures in six states (California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington) have passed the legislation.
Stop shifting corporate health care costs to taxpayers
