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Ohio Retail Merchants Take 'Anti-SPAN' Stance
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Calling it "bad medicine for Ohioans," John C. Mahaney Jr., president of the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants has voiced the group's strong opposition to a ballot initiative being promoted by the Single-Payer Action Network that would create a state-run, single-payer health care system. "Ohioans can ill afford to pay the exorbitant price that a statewide health care bureaucracy would cost," said Mahaney. "We're not just talking cost in dollars; we're also talking the cost of lost jobs, fewer health care providers, and zero consumer control." Creation of a $48 billion a year health care bureaucracy would result in businesses leaving the state to avoid the increased tax burden, health care providers being unable to operate their practices based on the low reimbursement rates that government-run programs provide, and consumers losing the ability to make decisions about their own health care, Mahaney said."One of the most ludicrous things about this socialized medicine initative is that it would do absolutely nothing to control ever-increasing health care costs, which will only result in ever-increasing demands for more money to fund the program," he pointed out. "With the constant demand for additional funding for education and other existing programs, the state simply can't afford to create a program that will bleed state coffers dry."The extremely liberal eligibility guidelines-all Ohio residents or individuals employed in Ohio, including the homeless and migrant workers-will cause an influx of people from surrounding states seeking to obtain free health care, he added."People could move into Ohio and 30 days later start receiving state-funded health care coverage," he said. "Those people wouldn't be the healthy people, either. They would be the sickest, most expensive patients to treat, and Ohio businesses would be footing the bill." "