The Florida Chamber supports efforts to reduce or contain health care costs to member businesses by opposing delivery practices and options that result in increased costs. The Chamber opposes any measures, such as government mandated health insurance benefits, that could result in higher premiums for employee insurance policies. As Florida government mandates health insurance benefits, it increases health insurance costs and eliminates flexibility for employers.
Higher costs create a real dilemma for Florida businesses, especially small business.
They face the unhappy choice of either dropping coverage altogether or passing these costs onto working families in the form of higher premiums, deductibles and co-payments. As evidence of this, ten percent of the respondents in a survey conducted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce cited premium increases as the reason they discontinued offering health insurance to employees. The Florida Chamber opposes adding additional government-mandated health insurance benefits. Florida currently has 52 mandated benefits on the books, arguably more than any other state in the nation. These mandates require insurance companies to cover these health services and make them part of the basic health care package.