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S. HRG. 114–333 

OBAMACARE’S EFFECTS ON SMALL BUSINESSES 

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 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

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COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana, Chairman 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland, Ranking Member 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

MARCO RUBIO, Florida 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

TIM SCOTT, South Carolina 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

ZAK BAIG, Republican Staff Director 

ANN JACOBS, Democratic Staff Director 

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C O N T E N T S 

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 

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OBAMACARE’S EFFECTS ON SMALL 

BUSINESSES 

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 longterm 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 

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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. 

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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 

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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 

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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 proDeShaun on LAP51NQ082 with DISTILLER

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vided 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 

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20 

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.] 

Æ 

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