Small businesses with 50 or fewer employees were to be exempt from new, expensive healthcare mandates and penalties under the Senate’s healthcare reform bill. But language slipped into the bill at the last minute—and voted on without many Senators even realizing it—altered that exemption from 50 employees to only five employees (and $250,000 in payroll) for businesses in the construction industry.

Small business owners from across Indiana gathered today at the state Capitol to expose this change as “a back-room deal” made in Washington that threatens thousands of jobs in Indiana.

“This provision is a job-killer, plain and simple,” said Barbara Quandt, state director of Indiana’s leading small business association, the National Federation of Independent Business. “Senator Reid’s back room deal is threatening thousands of Hoosier small businesses and putting their employees and families in jeopardy, and we need our congressional delegation to strip this from final healthcare legislation.”
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