One local business owner’s health care reform struggle

Marcia Boyce once offered the type of health care coverage every employee loves to see. She picked up 100 percent of the costs for 21 out of 26 employees in the plan at her two Boyce Body Werks collision repair shops in Batavia and Naperville.

Two years ago, the cost of the plan started to explode.

“We kept having to raise the deductibles of our employees,” Boyce said. “At the same time, we’ve had to keep lowering our coverage, but our costs were still going up by double digits.”

Because Boyce’s labor rates are set by car insurance companies, there was no direct way to offset her skyrocketing insurance costs by raising prices for her customers.

She tried shopping around for a better plan but could only find a couple other companies willing to cover her group, and what they had to offer wouldn’t have saved her any money, she said.

“I think if we were allowed to shop for plans across state lines there’d be more competition and maybe better prices,” Boyce said. “In the Chicago area, businesses like mine (and smaller) just don’t have a whole lot of options. And we have a fairly big group. I know businesses that are only one or two people who have it even worse.”

That’s why Boyce was one of several businesses calling 14th District U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren recently to urge him along in his mission to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. It’s part of the health care reform package that was championed by President Barack Obama last year. Congress passed the bill and Obama signed it into law last March.

By her own account, Boyce’s health care costs actually began rising out of control well before the act became law. The problem is, so far, the new law hasn’t helped Boyce.

For example, a provision in the law took effect last summer that provides a small business tax credit of up to 35 percent to help employers covering at least 50 percent of the insurance costs for their employees as a way to offset that cost. To qualify, a business must have 25 or fewer full-time employees. Boyce has 26 employees.

Another requirement says the small business must pay an average annual wage of $50,000 or less for those employees. The trained technicians at Boyce’s shops push her over that wage threshold.

“I looked into it, but we aren’t eligible any way you look at it,” Boyce said. “I’d be curious to know how many businesses really qualify. It’s a pretty low threshold.”

These are the sort of stories Hultgren listened to before casting his votes to begin dismantling the Affordable Care Act.

“The so-called Affordable Care Act has clearly failed to make health care more affordable,” Hultgren, a Republican from Winfield, said in voting to repeal the act last week. “Many (local business owners) told me that their employees are now required to pay far more for health insurance than they were before the law was enacted — clear proof that it has failed to control costs.”

Many parts of the act are not yet effective because the changes were designed to be phased in over the course of four years. For instance, the tax break Boyce doesn’t qualify for now actually increases to a 50 percent credit in 2014. But the qualifications to receive the tax credit won’t change, leaving Boyce still on the outside.

Hultgren said he is not waiting to see what happens with the rest of the law. He also voted for a resolution to put four committees to work on finding new solutions to lower insurance premiums by increasing competition, finding a way to make insurance affordable to people with pre-existing conditions and making sure more Americans have access to health insurance in general.

Meanwhile, Boyce and other local business people have urged Hultgren to continue to dismantle pieces of the current health care law they say don’t work. The key target for several members of both political parties is eliminating the 1099 provision that requires the filing of a tax form every time a business transaction of $600 or more occurs.

Boyce said she easily had more than 500 such transactions in 2010 for everything from paint to car parts.

“I understand the need to have a 1099 form when we hire an independent contractor,” she said. “And I know the idea is to root out hidden income. But all these forms are just ridiculous. It’s going to make the accountants rich, but that’s it.”

Boyce said eliminating the new 1099 provisions, finding a way to lower medical costs overall and passing medical malpractice reforms are what she expects to see out of Hultgren and the new Congress.