The President’s plan to further regulate Wall Street is meeting some resistance on Capitol Hill, from those in his own party.  Just like health care, the more people learn about the details of the legislation, the less they like it.

The House Financial Services Committee continues to delay the date when it will consider landmark legislation to create a powerful new regulator of financial products.  Conservative Democrats now realize these “reforms” could limit the capital made available to small business owners and reduce the number of financial products provided by our local banks.

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The President addressed Congress and the nation in an effort to sell his health care reform plan.  He laid out only a few details of his 10-year, $900 billion plan to re-shape America’s health care system.  He made the “public” option one of the main centerpieces of his speech but gave very little information on how individuals and businesses, especially small businesses, would be impacted.  Maybe that is because we all know the answer – higher taxes and more mandates.

In his speech the President welcomed ideas from all sides of the debate.  Well here are a few:

• Support health care portability so that people can carry their insurance from job to job or have access to insurance when they are between jobs.  Allow small businesses to purchase individually owned health insurance with pretax dollars;
• Oppose the bill developed by the House of Representatives that would increase taxes on our small businesses to pay for health care and impose a stiff penalty on those who don’t offer health care to their employees; 
• Oppose the Senate’s attempts to place new restrictions on Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). 
• Support allowing businesses to cross state lines to purchase health care for their employees which will increase access and make health care more affordable.

It is going to take more than just a good speech to produce health care reform legislation that preserves consumer choice and access to quality, affordable health care.  Congress and the President need to re-think their approach and produce free market alternatives. 

Congress returns to Washington, DC this week to pick up where they left off on health care reform.   It will likely be a very different debate than what we heard in July.

All across the country, thousands of people turned out in August at town hall meetings and other events to express their opposition to the health care reform bills moving through Congress.  Those who turned out to express their opposition were people from across the political spectrum.  Small business owners concerned about mandates, seniors concerned about the level of care they would receive under a government run program and people from the disabilities community concerned about limiting their access.

It is clear that those pushing for a government run health care system, or public option, are out of step with what people want out of health care reform.  Moderate Democrats, many who expressed support for a public option earlier this year, are now taking a second look at the House health care bill that will raise taxes and impose a surtax on our small businesses.  Even the President has started to realize he has a very difficult sales job ahead of him and will speak before a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night. 

What is happening shouldn't surprise any of us.  We all agree that more needs to be done to reign in health care costs and improve the system.  But a government run system that is paid for by taxing individuals and small businesses is not the answer. 

Congress needs to seriously re-think its approach on health care.  They need to be more open to ideas that make sense like allowing businesses to cross state lines to purchase health insurance for their employees, consider making health care portable so people can carry it from job to job and look for ways to reduce costs rather than impose new taxes.