President Clinton's proposal that all employers insure their workers, a crucial but controversial key to his health-reform plan, is getting a second look from some lawmakers who have been opposing it.
The latest: Sen. John Breaux, D-La., who floated a version at a private lunch of Senate Democrats on Tuesday that would impose the requirement but ease the burden on small businesses, including an exemption for those with 10 or fewer employees.
The idea mirrors one put forth last month by Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who has been trying without success to muster enough votes from conservatives on his committee who oppose the employer mandate.
It provides an option for slightly bigger businesses: instead of premiums, a 1% payroll tax for those with 11 to 15 employees, and a 2% payroll tax for those with 16 to 20.
Breaux is not endorsing the idea he circulated Tuesday. He and Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., are sponsoring an alternative to Clinton's proposal. Instead of a mandate, it calls for new insurance rules to foster competition among insurers to drive down premiums.
Breaux has said that less drastic action, such as overhauling the insurance market, should be tried before ordering businesses to insure workers. Clinton's bill would require all employers to pay at least 80% of workers' premiums.
"I don't like mandates," Breaux says. "I don't think they work. They are particularly harmful to small business and cause a loss of jobs."
But, he adds, "It's an option. . . . I'm just suggesting, let's talk about it here. Let's not set our feet in concrete."
Says Breaux, a member of the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., which is working on its own version of health reform, "People are looking for ways to solve the problem, and this may be one."
