We have 1,000 products. If every state has different reporting requirements, we’d have to produce 50,000 different [Material Safety Data Sheets].
Pricing is still a concern with consumers. We continue to see sticker shock. And the potential exists that with some cars in short supply, Detroit will take advantage of the situation with some big price increases this fall. What Detroit will do is drive some people into small or used cars instead. In the last three to four years, price increases outpaced income gains and pushed people into used cars. Pricing is the reason the recovery won’t be robust.
We might have to take drastic action such as limiting production.
[The law will be] unworkable, unmanageable, unadministratable, unenforceable and extraordinarily costly.
This is probably the single most anti-business bill to become law in New Jersey in recent years. The governor’s decision to sign it will cause serious doubts among people in business about the state’s commitment to encouraging growth and jobs.
Private insurance must be the vehicle for benefit coverage. This new program must not become enmeshed with Medicare and Medicaid. Caution must be expressed lest new troubles be created through expansion of an entitlement concept.
In our view, any program created should be temporary. It should remain in place for a limited period of time with a sunset provision. Such a requirement would establish the need for Congress and the nation to reevaluate the continuation of or modifications to the program on a regular basis rather than creating another ‘untouchable’ entitlement program.
Governments at all levels are already financially strapped. A national program must not be self-defeating, i.e., it should not so increase the deficit structure as to impede economic recovery. The country’s main objective must remain a return to a healthy economic condition. This is the main problem facing the unemployed.
Eligibility for such a program must be limited in scope….Individuals should be excluded if coverage can be obtained by another family member who is eligible for employer-based coverage or is eligible for continuation of an employer-offered health benefit plan. In addition, persons who are eligible for Medicare, Medicaid, or other government programs should be required to use such coverage. Stating this more generally, the new benefit should be secondary to other coverage.
As we devise legislation of this kind, my observation through the years has been that we tend to work at the Federal end of the chain. We will put the money in the Federal end, and it’s almost always on the assumption that the party at the very other end gets his full cost. If there ever was a circumstance under which you wanted the various parties and participants to share, this is the circumstance. I would again come back to fostering and leaving opportunities open for encouraging initiatives on the part of the insurance underwriters, providers, and communities to share in the cost of this problem. Don’t make it so easy. Don’t just give 100 percent Federal money. Somebody has got to start giving on the chain.