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Oregon Small Business for Responsible Leadership (OSBRL)!

OSBRL Health Care Reform Update: Another Tax for Small Businesses

Once again it looks like Oregon’s small businesses will bear an unequal share of the cost to reform health care in Oregon. Small business and OSBRL supported Senate Bill (SB) 329 but now it looks like funding suggestions provided (and included in the bill) will be swapped out for a provider tax and a payroll tax (the payroll tax was specifically opposed by OSBRL). That means you pay the primary cost to cover uninsured Oregonians.

The Oregon Health Fund Board (OHFB) Finance Committee published a document that states that provider and payroll taxes are the primary way they intend to fund health care reform, ignoring small businesses’ input and ignoring the proposed funding sources included in SB 329 itself. I am angry and think you should be too.

To be heard, contact Barney Speight, OHFB Executive Director, at Barney.Speight@state.or.us, Tim Nesbit, Governor’s Deputy Chief of Staff, at Tim.Nesbitt@state.or.us or your legislators. Legislator contact information can be found at: http://www.leg.state.or.us.

Please refer to the Hot Topics for more information and testimony.

OSBRL endorses the following candidates for the 2008 elections:

    Jeff Merkley for U.S. Senate

    Kate Brown for Oregon Secretary of State

    John Kroger for Oregon Attorney General

    Ben Westlund for Oregon State Treasurer

Please refer to the Endorsements for OSBRL recommendations.