[Senate Hearing 114-333]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-333
OBAMACARE'S EFFECTS ON SMALL BUSINESSES
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FIELD HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JANUARY 15, 2015
__________
Printed for the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
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COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
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DAVID VITTER, Louisiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland, Ranking Member
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
MARCO RUBIO, Florida JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
RAND PAUL, Kentucky HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
TIM SCOTT, South Carolina EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey
CORY GARDNER, Colorado CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
JONI ERNST, Iowa MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
Zak Baig, Republican Staff Director
Ann Jacobs, Democratic Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Opening Statements
Page
Vitter, Hon. David, Chairman, and a U.S. Senator from Louisiana.. 1
Witnesses
Statement of Hedy Hebert, Partner, Benefit Consulting Services,
Bossier City, LA............................................... 6
Statement of Debbie Martin, President, North Shreveport Business
Association, Shreveport, LA.................................... 10
Statement of David Scruggs, COO, Piggly Wiggly and Save-A-Lot
Grocery Stores, Springhill, LA................................. 12
Statement of Brenda Little, Healthcare Administrator, Jean
Simpson Personnel Services, Inc., Shreveport, LA............... 14
Alphabetical Listing
Hebert, Hedy
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Little, Brenda
Testimony.................................................... 14
Prepared statement........................................... 16
Martin, Debbie
Testimony.................................................... 10
Prepared statement........................................... 11
Scruggs, David
Testimony.................................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 13
Vitter, Hon. David
Opening statement............................................ 1
Prepared statement........................................... 3
OBAMACARE'S EFFECTS ON SMALL BUSINESSES
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THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 2015
Bossier Parish Community
College Theater,
Bossier City, LA.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:30 p.m., at
Bossier Parish Community College Theater, 6220 East Texas St.,
Hon. David Vitter, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senator Vitter.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID VITTER, CHAIRMAN, AND A U.S.
SENATOR FROM LOUISIANA
Chairman Vitter. As I promised, let's now move on to our
panel. I'm really, really honored that these four
representatives of small businesses and consultants to small
businesses in Northwest Louisiana could join us. And they're
going to provide insight into the small business experience
under ObamaCare. Let me also mention, before I introduce them,
that I had also invited as chair of the small business
committee, two folks from the Federal Government who are
directly involved in Washington's exemption from ObamaCare to
talk about that. They declined. They refused to come and
testify. We're going to follow up in the future including with
subpoenas if we need to. But I did invite them as witnesses as
well. They refused.
So let me introduce our small business panel. I'll
introduce all four and then they will present their testimony
and observation in order. First Hedy Hebert. Hedy is a partner
and consultant with Benefit Consultant Services in Bossier
City. She works with large and small employer groups who
provide employee benefits and coverage in such areas as group
health life, dental, disability and long-term insurance.
Next will be Debbie Martin. Debbie is the president of the
North Shreveport Business Association. Of course, the mission
of that important association is to educate, inform and provide
beneficial services to members in those businesses who
represent, promote and support the business community of North
Shreveport. That organization supports educational needs in
area and neighborhood schools, annual activities supporting
police, fire and sheriff's departments, legislative advocacy
and much more.
We also have David Scruggs with us. David is controller of
Kenyan Companies; and as controller David is responsible for
the financial reporting, financing needs, financial forecasting
and compliance of all Kenyan Companies. That's probably better
known to you as the company that operates Piggly Wiggly and
Save-A-Lot Grocery Stores in several states, including this
area in Louisiana.
And finally Brenda Little. Brenda has had various job
duties and responsibilities at Jean Simpson Personnel Service
for 19 years, working with the largest staffing agency in
Shreveport-Bossier. She's counseled employees on their careers,
recruited candidates for career opportunities and provided
customer service to over 2,000 customers. In addition to this,
Brenda's duties have been expanded to include Healthcare
administrator with the task of devising a plan to track and
report ObamaCare information and mandated reporting. And I know
that's a big, big new burden and responsibility for Brenda.
So, again, thanks to all of you for being here, and we'll
go in the order I just introduced you, starting with Hedy.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Vitter follows:]
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STATEMENT OF HEDY HEBERT, PARTNER, BENEFIT CONSULTING SERVICES,
BOSSIER CITY, LA
Ms. Hebert. Good afternoon. Senator Vitter, thank you for
the opportunity to be with you this afternoon and other
distinguished business owner and community leaders as we
discuss the many struggles small businesses face in navigating
the healthcare law. Because Congress is exempted from
healthcare reform law, it is difficult for many of their
members to fully understand the daily struggles our business
owners now face. Again, my name is Hedy Hebert, Partner with
Benefit Consulting Services right here in Bossier City. Our
company provides employee benefit consultation services for
many local businesses, particularly for group health insurance.
For many years healthcare costs have been increasing and we
have worked hard to provide sensible solutions for our clients.
As a past president of the Bossier Chamber of Commerce, I
have listened to the struggles that many businesses have faced
for years as they have tried to find a way to offer a
competitive benefit package to their employees. Our company has
also worked with the Greater Shreveport Chamber of Commerce,
and many of their members have expressed the same concerns. The
Affordable Care Act did not address the main problem most
businesses previously faced, and that was ``cost.'' Many of
these businesses were in favor of changes that would eliminate
pre-existing conditions, and they also were in favor of having
the opportunity to purchase insurance at lower rates with more
choices as some of the larger employers were able to do.
When the definition of full-time hours was changed from 40
to 30, this increased the burden to have to offer insurance to
even more employees, which would increase the healthcare costs
again. There are many unintended consequences in the Affordable
Care Act. One of them is that now many employers are changing
their employees' hours to 29 to avoid having to offer benefits.
One of my physician office clients told me they would not grow,
and definitely would never have 50 employees.
There are also many negative effects of the Affordable Care
Act:
1. Rising healthcare costs.
2. Limitations on the employer's expansion
opportunities.
3. Employer mandates.
4. IRS reporting requirements.
5. Higher deductible plans make it difficult for
employees to be able to use the coverage.
6. Increased Department of Labor audits.
7. Moving from grandfathered plans to non-grandfathered
plans changes the rated mechanism to age rated instead
of composite rates. This increases the rates for the
younger employees. It also significantly impacts the
family rate by charging for each child individually
now.
8. Tax increases.
9. Increased regulation.
10. Tax credits are not working for most employers. In
order to receive credits, they must be in the SHOP
Exchange, and at present, there aren't many options as
they vary from State to State.
When the employer mandate for large employers was postponed
by the Federal Government, many employees that had never been
offered coverage signed up for the Market Place in the
Government Exchange. When these same employers complied with
the law and offered coverage in January of this year, those
employees receiving this subsidy were no longer eligible for
it--unintended consequences. There is a lot of confusion,
however, because many individuals have been told by
Healthcare.gov that they are still eligible to receive the
subsidy. Even though there is an individual mandate to purchase
insurance, many people still plan to take their chances with
the penalty, because they know they can still access the
emergency room for treatment.
Another problem that employers are also facing is the delay
to get their groups set up with the insurance carriers. The
back-log is tremendous because of all the mandates that the
insurance carriers also experience.
If the members of Congress were not exempt from the
Affordable Care Act, and if any of them owned a small company,
they would have a better appreciation of what our businesses
face on a daily basis. They would also have a better
understanding as to why there is so much confusion in our
country right now. A young fireman's family rate for insurance
increased from $1,300 per month to $1,679. The only way to
lower his rate is to continually decrease his benefits.
Thank you again for the opportunity to share some of the
problems our clients are experiencing. We appreciate your
interest in helping these employers and will be glad to help at
any time.
[Applause].
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hebert follows:]
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Chairman Vitter. Thank you very much.
Now Debbie Martin.
STATEMENT OF DEBBIE MARTIN, PRESIDENT, NORTH SHREVEPORT
BUSINESS ASSOCIATION, SHREVEPORT, LA
Ms. Martin. Thank you again, Senator Vitter, for the
invitation.
Chairman Vitter. Sure.
Ms. Martin. I've had numerous opportunities to visit with
business owners regarding the impact and negative consequences
of ObamaCare to their businesses. There are over 650 business
in the North Shreveport area. In an effort to assist our
members to better understand ObamaCare, our association has
provided guest speakers familiar with the law and the impact it
will have on the business community. What I have observed after
each speaker concluded their presentation is that our members
were so confused, they were unable to ask question.
Many businesses have told me they had to eliminate
expansion plans, reduce the hours of full-time employees and
eliminate annual bonuses in order to remain competitive and
profitable. The most painful scenario occurs when employers are
making decisions that affect employees that have been with them
for many, many years.
I spoke with a businessman recently who informed me his
Blue Cross Blue Shield premium one year ago was $280 a month
and his deductible was $1,000. His new coverage to comply with
ObamaCare would cost him more than $600 per month and the
deductible went up to $5,000. This gentleman is a 60-year-old
male that now has to carry maternity benefits and pediatric
dentistry. He's self-employed and simply cannot afford it. He
opted to pay the fine.
Another large employer shared that they have spent endless
hours cutting employee hours in order to stay below the 30-hour
threshold. Most of these employees took a second job to make
ends meet, and now they're having their hours reduced. These
employees did not ask for benefits, but a few hours just to pay
their bills.
One business stated, in order to survive, they've
eliminated all full-time employees through attrition and will
not hire any additional full-time employees. Another business
had said, in order to keep up with the information required to
meet the guidelines, it will require 40 hours per week to
complete.
And lastly, I have experienced, after speaking with several
small business owners, they're afraid to speak publicly in fear
that their business will be negatively targeted.
Thank you.
[Applause].
[The prepared statement of Ms. Martin follows:]
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Chairman Vitter. Thank you, Debbie, for your testimony and
for being here.
Now, David Scruggs.
STATEMENT OF DAVID SCRUGGS, COO, PIGGLY WIGGLY AND SAVE-A-LOT
GROCERY STORES, SPRINGHILL, LA
Mr. Scruggs. Thank you, Senator. And I appreciate that last
comment. When you're dealing with retail, that's exactly what
you're worried about.
Our company, Kenyan Companies, we own and operate 17
grocery stores. We have 4 Piggly Wigglys and 13 Save-A-Lots.
We're in four states and we have over 400 employees. The one
thing at Kenyan Companies, we've always prided ourselves on our
employee benefit program and what we offered our employees. And
as an added benefit to them, our company has historically paid
66 percent of their healthcare premiums. Now we have the
Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, telling us that we have to
offer health benefits to twice the number of employees and that
we have to cover even more of the cost, a cost that is not
shared by the Federal Government, the health insurance
companies or that we will pass on to employees. This is a
Government mandated cost increase that is to be paid directly
by our company.
In 2014 our Group Health Plan covered 63 employees, their
spouses and their children. Under this plan, our company paid
66 percent of the cost, or $449,000.
For 2015, after going through all the rules applying this
9.5% affordability calculation to our lowest eligible 30-hour
employee, it was calculated that we could only charge our
employees $90 a month for healthcare or for health insurance,
and now we must include every employee above 30 hours and to
our eligible group. Therefore, for 2015, our Group Health Plan
will now cover 151 employees, their spouses and their children.
The increase in the number of employees covered is a direct
result of ObamaCare, because they require that each individual
have health insurance or face penalties. What this has done to
our company is it has moved our expense numbers from 66% to
81.5%, the premiums, for each employee. Our new projected cost
for this year is going to be $899,000. That's an increase
through our company of $450,000. This is more than 30% of what
we were able to put on our bottom line last year. Since the
Administration has assumed the authority to make decisions on
how we are to spend our money, I think they ought to provide us
with the solution to minimize the effect of it. Now our company
is going to be forced to make many difficult decisions this
next year on how to cover this tremendously increased cost. And
unfortunately, one of them will be changes in our hiring
practices. We will no longer hire someone coming in right off
the bat at full time. All of our new hires unfortunately will
come in at 25 hours a week, then we will pick the most
potential employee and move them to 35 hours a week. We will
avoid the 30-hour threshold. Thank you.
[Applause].
[The prepared statement of Mr. Scruggs follows:]
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Chairman Vitter. Thank you, Mr. Scruggs.
Then finally Brenda Little. Brenda.
STATEMENT OF BRENDA LITTLE, HEALTHCARE ADMINISTRATOR, JEAN
SIMPSON PERSONNEL SERVICES, INC., SHREVEPORT, LA
Ms. Little. Thank you for letting me be here as well.
Chairman Vitter. Sure.
Ms. Little. The reason Affordable Care Act has impacted our
business greatly in numerous ways, as well as our customers
that we provide staffing for in a negative manner by the
numerous extra costs it forces our company to bear along with
our customers. Keeping up with all the information that is ever
changing and evolving as the legislation concerning all of the
ObamaCare regulations is revealed has required us to create a
40-plus hour a week position to do so. There are so many
variables with the legislation, it makes it extremely difficult
and confusing to keep up with and to lay out a doable plan for
tracking. Also, to have in place some sort of checks and
balances to prevent employees form slipping through the cracks
where there are gray areas. It is all confusing for us, which
makes it more difficult to explain to our employees, which are
primarily made up of the blue collar working class that mostly
barely have a high school education. In the staffing business,
an employee's status can be ever changing, so keeping up with
whether an employee is a variable, non-variable, part-time or a
seasonable employee when it can change repeatedly throughout
their duration with us as an employee is a huge challenge and
takes constant monitoring. You have measurement periods to
track, administrative periods, stability periods, and also
breaks in service that all have to be monitored.
One of the most confusing things that is a huge part of
this legislation is calculating what is considered your
``FTE's'', or your (Full Time Equivalent) employees. Most
businesses assume that they are safe because they have part-
time workers. But in all actuality, if the company has enough
part-time workers, they may be vulnerable to a fine due to the
way that the employer's FTE's are actually figured. They are
figured on hours worked, not necessarily the number of
employees you employ. The calculations can be overwhelming.
In the staffing business, we do not always know if a person
is going to be working 30-plus hours per week. Employees, as a
part of their continuing employment, can reject assignments,
typically work 40 hours more per week on assignments of less
than 13 weeks, and typically have periods where no assignments
are available. We have anywhere from 600 to 800 employees on
our payroll on a weekly basis, not always the same employees.
Someone has to track all of this. Very little easily understood
information and/or guidelines have been provided along with
this legislation to employers. We have to figure out our own
tracking methods and hope that we are able to provide all the
information that is to be required when it comes time to report
all of this, which will be a lot more hours that someone within
our company will have to spend to compile. We are offering a
wellness plan, which is what gets us over the ``A'' tax. This
only leaves us vulnerable to the ``B'' tax if someone actually
qualifies and receives a subsidy. We have been forced to learn,
know, and understand healthcare insurance. We also have to
allow time to explain to our employees the insurance offered to
them, when their main concern is primarily to find employment.
The wellness plan that we offer costs $65.28 per month for an
employee only. So a person earning $8 an hour will have to work
a little over 8 hours to pay for this before they are able to
earn any money to provide for their self. This is a total of
$783.36 per year, which is a much greater amount than what
someone's wellness visit should be. When, if they elect to just
pay the fine, based on that income, would be $124.80 if they
are the only person earning income in that household.
This legislation does not help the average person who did
not have healthcare coverage before. It just puts a greater
burden on them.
[Applause].
[The prepared statement of Ms. Little follows:]
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Chairman Vitter. Thank you. Thanks to all of you again for
your testimony and for being here. You offered a real direct
small business perspective, so I really appreciate that. I
wanted to explore a few important issues that most, if not all,
of you touched on, but explore it a little more. One is cost. I
think broad brush, the biggest problem we are seeing as a
result of ObamaCare is the promise was it's going to drive
costs down. And basically it's driving costs up, even more than
they were already going. So it hadn't solved that problem. It
made it worse in my opinion. It's not just my opinion. It's a
lot of studies that bear that out. One study, a September 2014
study by the American Action Forum, reported that Louisiana
businesses experienced an average premium increase of 9% as a
result of ObamaCare requirements. I'm just curious if each of
you could react, some of you mentioned figures, what your
experience is compared to, say, 9% average increase.
Mr. Scruggs. According to my numbers, mine is 50 percent.
It doubled. It's a 100% increase. We went from 449,000 to
899,000. I think the most difficult thing in watching is, you
know, it's great that we cover more employees. We're glad to
see more employees have health insurance, but nobody is
controlling the cost of the healthcare. No one is controlling
or mandating limitations from like a United Healthcare or a
Blue Cross on what the premiums could be, so having the mandate
of having to offer the health insurance is one thing, but
giving somebody an open book on the other hand and not
controlling them at all, that's what makes it very unfair to
small businesses.
Chairman Vitter. Anybody else?
Ms. Hebert. I would just like to add, on all of the
renewals that we've seen under small businesses, if they were
with non-profit carriers, seemed to be pretty good renewals.
When there was some of the for-profit carriers, now you have
rebates. Y'all probably hear about the rebate checks that come
back and if you don't spend them for the healthcare
[inaudible]. So now we have a situation where sometimes you get
the renewal in and, you know, I'm going to ask every time to
have a zero renewal because I do that for my clients, so I
think I should do that. But if they say, well, what do you
think they will take? I never heard that before. I never heard
that now we negotiate our rates because they're all worried
about what their bottom line is going to be. So this is
affecting the carriers. The premium taxes that we all see,
they're passing that on to us and they're more taxes coming in
every year. The Cadillac tax, I know y'all are working with
that in the future, but they just don't stop.
Chairman Vitter. I agree. Anyone else?
Mr. Scruggs. Just the straight rates from the health
insurance companies. You know, last year we did a short year
renewal. Our planning year usually ended in March and then we
would have open enrollment, but what we did is we only renewed
our healthcare plan until December 31st of this year. We waited
to see if there were going to be any changes. So when we
renewed for our short year renewal, our premiums came back at
an 8% increase. We had this plan for 9 months. When we were
renewing in December, they wanted another 12% increase. Why?
The evidence wasn't even there. Their expenses compared to the
premium that we were charged over those 9 months, they pocketed
about 63 percent compared to what they actually had to pay out
for our group. So there is just no control. They've got to
control the healthcare providers.
Chairman Vitter. Anybody else? Okay. Another issue that at
least some of you touched on and certainly I'm interested in is
what is full time, 30-hour week, 40-hour week. Again, for
everybody's benefit, there's a rule in ObamaCare that basically
for some of these calculations counts full-time workers as
anything above 30 hours. So, as a result, to not have that
person counted in certain ways under the calculation, a lot of
employers have pushed people out of your 40 hours to 29 hours
or less--25 hours, the case of you all. If you could elaborate
a little bit about what you've seen directly in terms of that
impact?
Ms. Martin. In my notes I referenced a company with over
1,000 employees, and they have spent the last year, probably
longer than a year, going through each and every employee
record and cutting those hours back. And these are people that
are desperate for work. And so that's been one of the hardest
things for these companies to do. There will be no full-time
employees.
Chairman Vitter. So you're saying in that case, they did
that for all thousand?
Ms. Martin. They're doing it. As many as they can do,
they're doing. Other companies have called and said our bonuses
are sitting there. We don't know what to do. There will be no
weekend, overtime, no other work because we just don't know
what recordkeeping is going to have to be required and we don't
know when we're going to have to go to [inaudible] supposed to
do. So the uncertainty makes it not able to advance, yet, they
are pulling from the employee that's suffering because of this.
Chairman Vitter. So, obviously, for the individual worker,
everything else is the same. They're losing a quarter of their
paycheck.
Ms. Martin. Or their job. And we have a housekeeper that
works in our office. She has two jobs. She's worked at a local
establishment for 15 years. A valued employee, probably never
missed a day, works a second janitorial job with us. Those
hours were cut, so she has to find a third job now just to keep
up because she doesn't want to get on welfare. She refuses to
do that. She's able to work, but she wants to provide for her
children. So that's so unfair for someone that's worked
somewhere that many years and she knows that it's just not
right that she has no choice.
Mr. Scruggs. As an employer, that's one of the things
that's really difficult. Meaning typically if we hire someone,
they're going to work 30, 32 hours a week. And to have to make
that decision to back down to 25 hours simply because somebody
mandated the cost increase for you, you know, it doesn't seem
fair, but at the same time it's not fair to the guests to
suffer the increases in our bottom line expenses, you know. And
that's painful to watch these people. They are going to work
at/or slightly above minimum wage, and what you can only give
that person now, you can give them 25 hours, they are going to
have to get a second job or maybe get a third job to make ends
meet.
Chairman Vitter. Anybody else? Let me ask in a third area.
As you all know, in 2014 a temporary small business tax credit
was made available for 2 years. So that's small businesses that
provided workers with qualified health coverage under ObamaCare
and had 10 or fewer workers would get back up. And for firms
with 11 to 25 employees they'd get a lower credit. Firms with
more than 25 employees get no credit. Only firms covering 50%
or more insurance costs are eligible and all of their coverage
is in the credit. It has to be through the SHOP Exchange. At
least one of you mentioned that, and basically the difficulty
and the cumbersomeness of taking advantage of it. Do any of
y'all have direct experience with businesses using that or not
using it based upon how that works and how cumbersome or not it
is?
Ms. Hebert. I mentioned it in my speech. I know that
companies early on when we found out about the small business
tax credits, our companies received information from their
carriers that told them that they should talk to their
accountants, talk to their CPA's just to see if they're
eligible for it. Most of the ones that we talked to, it was
very cumbersome what they had to go through for the money they
were going to save. And I don't know of any that, you know, did
save money. The other thing is the way it was designed then,
you know, the rules have changed now that you now have to be a
part of the SHOP Exchange. When the tax credits first came out,
they could be eligible for it, but now with the SHOP not being
fully operated and having choices, which I think the reason for
that is so that small companies can have that opportunity to
have different carriers like the larger companies do, so now
they have to still make the same participation requirements.
The rules are basically the same as regular insurance. So it's
just not been something--I think more could be done on it. But
so far it's not been working for us.
Chairman Vitter. So broad brush, why aren't more choices
available under the SHOP Exchange?
Ms. Hebert. Right.
Chairman Vitter. I'm saying, why aren't there more choices
available?
Ms. Hebert. Well, personally I think some of the carriers,
it appeared in the beginning, kind of waited and didn't go out
on the Exchange, it didn't offer different things because I
think when they--they knew they had to have everybody come in,
so there's a risk out there [inaudible] in the beginning. And
it may be more choices in another year or so, but right now
it's not helping the small employer and those increases still
keep coming. So that may be. I don't know what the reason is.
Chairman Vitter. Anybody else? And then another area, you
know, a big line in ObamaCare is fewer than 50 employees vs.
over that. So, basically over 50, you have the business
mandate. Under 50, you don't. So it's a huge difference.
Obviously if you are a small business at 45 employees, that
gives you an enormous pause about growing in a way that you
would otherwise want to do. Any of y'all have direct experience
with businesses in that predicament?
Ms. Hebert. Meaning that they aren't going to expand?
Chairman Vitter. Well, whatever the experience is, do you
know of businesses of that size, and how are they reacting to
that line being?
Ms. Little. We had some companies that their feedback has
been, when they get at that threshold that those people will be
let go. In other words, not go over those hours or they are
going to make them go over that hump.
Chairman Vitter. So clearly, what I would have expected is
true? That's a big barrier of businesses growing beyond that?
Ms. Little. Exactly.
Chairman Vitter. A lot of businesses would otherwise expand
to grow beyond that. This is a big inhibiting factor?
Ms. Little. Huge.
Ms. Hebert. There's also control rules too where there's
people that own different companies and the rules in there say,
if you are part of the [inaudible] group and you may have 10 in
this company and 35%----
Chairman Vitter. Put it all together.
Ms. Little. Put it all together.
Mr. Scruggs. [Inaudible.]
Chairman Vitter. So technically you have four companies,
but under the rules you have to count it all as one?
Mr. Scruggs. One company.
Chairman Vitter. Thank you all very, very much for coming
out. [Applause]. Before you leave, I want to thank our panel
again, the small business experts. Let's give them a round of
applause. [Applause]. Two more things: If I wasn't able to get
to you, your comment or question, and if you haven't already,
please give us one of those little forms with your name and
contact information. We will follow up. That's number one.
Number two, please keep the handout we passed out today
because, again, that blue column on the left-hand side of the
page has all my contact information, including our Web site,
which has easy e-mail access, including our Northwest Louisiana
office. So please use that to keep in contact with me and my
staff on an ongoing basis. And finally, I'm going to be doing
plenty more town halls, small business committee field
hearings, etc. I always do those around the State on a regular
basis. That will certainly continue. And we also do telephone
town halls. Many of you have participated in those.
Thank you very much. Thank you for coming today.
[Whereupon, at 3:30 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[all]