Health Care

Rising healthcare costs continue to challenge New Hampshire businesses. BIA does not support policies that result in cost-shifting from the public to the private sector or additional benefit mandates. BIA supports efforts to alleviate the high cost of healthcare and insurance for employers and employees.

To view the status of current legislation related to health care, click here.

Top Issues

Health Insurance Mandates

While BIA acknowledges the good intentions behind individual health insurance mandates that seek to either expand coverage to certain populations or include additional services and procedures, collectively they add cost to health insurance. This can lead to businesses choosing to self-insure to avoid complying with mandates or, in the case of smaller businesses, stop offering health insurance as an employment benefit. BIA opposes additional healthcare mandates.

Medicaid Funding

BIA supports adequate state funding for the Medicaid program. Below-cost Medicaid reimbursement to hospitals and other healthcare providers results in cost-shifting to the private insurance market and increased premiums. Businesses predominantly pay the cost of higher health insurance premiums.

Transparency

BIA believes that access to information about healthcare quality and cost will spur increased competition among providers and enable healthcare consumers to make more informed, prudent decisions about where to go for services. This is an important first step in helping to curb rising healthcare and health insurance costs for businesses and their employees.

Other Issues

BIA monitors and responds to healthcare legislation addressing:

• Medical Malpractice
• State-sponsored Healthcare Assistance Programs and Services
• Healthcare Study Groups and Cost Drivers