While the long term impact of today's Supreme Court's decision on health care on travel industry firms - and small businesses - is largely unknown, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) reacted critically to the Court’s decision. The Court uphold the controversial individual mandate and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The 5 to 4 decision went against what NFIB and 26 states argued in front of the Court in their challenge against the constitutionality of the individual mandate. The new healthcare law has been strongly supported by the Obama Administration.
“While we are certainly disappointed, NFIB respects the decision to uphold the individual mandate by the Supreme Court. Clearly this mandate has now become a tax on all Americans and a broken campaign promise from President Obama not to raise taxes,” said Dan Danner, President and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business. “We are concerned about the precedent that this will set in Congress’ ability to mandate other aspects of our lives, but we will move forward from today to continue to fight, harder than ever, for real health-care reform for our membership.
“Under PPACA, small-business owners are going to face an onslaught of taxes and mandates, resulting in job loss and closed businesses. We will continue to fight for the repeal of PPACA in the halls of Congress; only with PPACA’s full repeal will Congress have the ability to go back to the drawing board to craft real reform that makes reducing costs a number one priority. The power and control of health-care decisions should be in the hands of the consumer, not the government,” Danner said.
“This day will go down in history as the day when Americans lost a part of their freedom – the freedom to choose what they want to buy with their own money when they want to buy it, apart from the government telling them they must purchase a product they may or may not want,” said Karen Harned, Executive Director of NFIB’s Small Business Legal Center.
NFIB is a leading small business association and a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. NFIB gives small and independent business owners a voice in shaping the public policy issues that affect their business.
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