Health law ruling a beacon of hope

Not even the promise of Back-to-School shoppers looking for bargains can make small-business owners optimistic these days. Who can blame them? For months, sales growth and business conditions have sagged, pulling the National Federation of Independent Business’ Small-Business Optimism Index down for the fifth month in a row.

And after Washington’s nasty debt and deficit mud fight this summer, Main Street business owners are fed up and squinting for any glimmer of light on their horizons.

That glimmer appeared recently in Atlanta when the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals handed down a ruling that could signal some future relief for millions of small firms.

Declaring a key provision of President Obama’s one-year-old health-reform law unconstitutional, the court agreed with the NFIB and more than two dozen states, that Congress leaped far beyond its authority in requiring every single American to purchase a health insurance policy, or pay a fine — a demand never before forced on citizens.

Most importantly, in declaring the individual mandate to be an offensive overreach of congressional power, the court has dealt what many believe to be a fatal blow to the law in its entirety. Although the judges stopped short of tossing out the law in full, NFIB will continue to argue that the court’s decision has hollowed out the law, leaving it nothing more than a tangled mess of regulations and taxes, without a leg to stand on.

What small-business owners understand much better than lawmakers and policy experts who don’t face customers each day is that the economy is in the tank. Adding new taxes, increasing paperwork burdens and penalties on employers who are unable to provide the Cadillac-levels of coverage this law compels will keep the economy where it is — anemic and struggling — if it doesn’t sink it further.

That’s why NFIB and supporting states rose to the task of challenging the law, while the ink was still fresh and before many of the most egregious provisions have begun to take their toll on small firms. And look how far we’ve come. We all agree that America cannot afford PPACA. It’s litany of new mandates will stifle entrepreneurial innovation, grind small businesses down and prohibit job creation. To prevent this from happening, we still have further to go.

If the health law is not stopped now, the wasted resources and damage to small businesses will be beyond calculation. Not to mention, if the law stands, any American who expects improved and less costly medical care should prepare for just the opposite.

The last line of defense is the U.S. Supreme Court, and the sooner NFIB’s case reaches its hallowed halls, the sooner we have resolution on this most critical issue.

The good news is that this latest decision has created a split between two federal appeals courts and could fast-track a Supreme Court review of the law whose faulty core now appears to be hanging by a thread. 

The Appeals Court ruling is cause for optimism among small businesses. There will be an even greater source of great celebration on Main Street if the Supreme Court affirms the limits on congressional power.

There’s nothing the nation’s job-generators need today more than confirmation that leadership still exists in the nation’s capital.

Dan Danner is president and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents 350,000 business owners.