Obamacare mandated that small businesses with 50 or more full-time employees offer health insurance to their full-time workers. Tray Abney with the Chamber of Commerce of Reno, Sparks and Northern Nevada says that was tough for some local companies.
“You either have to raise prices depending on who you’re competing with and what kind of industry you’re in,” Abney explains. “You either hire less people, or you play people less in order to provide health care coverage for them. Or you don’t have much money to re-invest in the business as much as you would whether it’s in your building or your facilities or your location there.”
The Sacramento Bee is reporting that the GOP health bill eliminates that mandate. Gary Claxton is director of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Health Care Marketplace Project. He told the paper that the majority of workers won't be affected by the potential repeal. That's because most large employers already offered benefits before the law took effect.