to draft legislation based on "the wall street journal." i hope to see more of that. a couple of quick points. i don't have a surcharge on my menu. i have always provided insurance for 21 years for my full-time workers. insurance companies don't really offer insurance for part-time workers. a lot of part-time workers have a second job where they have insurance. that is the case with mine. the interesting problem, the one element of want to focus on, -- i want to focus on, would be the escrow account you want us to hold, which would tie up the money for hra's for part-time employees that likely already have insurance and take that away from money would be spending on premiums for full- time employees. if you want to see the $250,000

loss that i had last year that forced me into bankruptcy, i will show it to you. there is no extra money sitting around. the occasional claim we get, we pay. we have no restrictions on the hra. we have actual insurance. second, in fairness, insurance companies don't hold on to money for 18 months after you stop paying premiums. they don't hold onto it for a day. they don't respond to me the premiums i pay for insurance money is not paid for or health care not used. it seems you're putting a burden on hra you are not putting on an insurance company or on the city itself. second of all, when people say there has been no effect of the various anti-business legislation over the years, i would point out, supervisor campos, your district is

booming. you should come over to a davidchiu's district. there are several empty spaces. most restaurants in the mission are 20 employees are less. most in the financial district are 21 employees areas -- employees or more. redwood park has been closed for nine years. this is a problem for us mid- sized businesses. we cannot afford to set money aside we don't have. i hope you could look just at the one aspect, the escrow account. all of the rest of the things, businesses are depriving -- false advertising, go after them all you want. we cannot afford to put aside money the insurance company is not asked to put aside. supervisor campos: thank you

very much. if you have an employee already getting insurance from another employer, they can opt out of the hra's. i want to make sure that is clear. that is doable. >> there also offered insurance, but they may not take it. supervisor campos: they can opt out of it. next speaker. >> good afternoon. ♪ doctor doctor oh, government oversight give us good news we have a bad case of health care blues those descriptions -- prescriptions you still are not cheap give us the answers that we seek because we work hard for the money so hard for the oversight and you had better treated retreat right

she works hard for the money so hard for it you had better treat her right all right she works night and day and he does to for so little pay and they don't see much of anything they work hard for the money so hard for it, oversight please give them the budget light ♪ >> thank you. supervisor campos: next speaker. >> you don't mind if i rap, do you? supervisor farrell has learned from supervisor elsbernd. he says, if i don't say anything, they cannot hold my words against me.

you are not for talkative. let's do one thing. let's enjoy the forty-niners being in first place. i doubt that will last very long. what you have got here is obviously the battle between greed and the public need. these guys are never going to quit. they have been to the supreme court already to keep from paying their fair share. how much is enough if you give it to them? there is no such thing as enough. $1 billion is not enough. $10 billion, not enough. they will always come back and try to screw the little guy, try to transfer the cost. another thought, these guys are running for mayor, ok? i have watched president chiu in parkmerced. he said, i have a 10-page thing

and i'm convinced we will not lose units. he did the same thing. he is trying to do the same thing on healthy for st. -- healthy san francisco. the mayor, the lasting wants to do is go out -- last thing he wants to do is cry out and say, you're trying to kill healthy san francisco. i know there's a loophole. the big number here is $850 million. if the average worker has health insurance and does not get sick that year, does blue shield's and the money back? i don't think so. not going to happen, you know? $850 million in how much legitimate companies are. the gangsters doing it on the backs of employees can get out of town. i doubt they will do that. $850 million. they're paying premiums. if their employees at the end up in the hospital, you would have

good employers stand up and say, the broker legg and it cost $100,000, thank god i have insurance. this program should be dumped entirely. this was a side door in case they did not win the supreme court decision, which they didn't. roadblocks to usage. one thing to close on, there is a guy back here, chris wright, are you aware, did you see in laguna honda where they have this little guy, mark, got right up in his face? there is personal space. he did this to me right back there. you will see him do it outside. supervisor campos: next speaker, please.

>> good afternoon. i'm the executive director for the golden gate restaurant association. we have a little over 1000 member restaurants. i want to start off by correcting the record a little on the facts that have been stated. there continue to be this number used of 13% of businesses use reimbursement accounts. that is inaccurate. 29% of businesses covered under healthy san francisco use some form of reimbursement account appears 65% of that are small businesses. to continue to use numbers that do not reflect that reality misstates the number of businesses that use reimbursement account. some of them may also provide health insurance. to say they will not be impacted by this legislation is incorrect. "the wall street journal" was mentioned and the idea around fees.

you also probably saw my quotation in "the wall street journal." i said, if a business is misrepresenting their charging for health care costs and not providing it, that is wrong and we do not support that. however, i will use the one market example of the restaurant. their fee did not say it was for help the san francisco. it was for employer-mandates like kelsey san francisco -- healthy san francisco. there was a little -- litany of new costs. he did not say costs created a 60% increase in the cost of labor for minimum wage employee that oakland does not have. now all the pastry shops, bakeries, are moving that way. the restaurants are outsourcing forces -- functions to other towns because of increased

costs. this is a defining moment, as you have said. as to whether or not we want to find solutions are political wedge is, whether or not we want to find solutions or false choices. that is what is being presented here. there are other ways to solve the problems we have identified. brighterchiu's efforts -- supervisor chiu's efforts have gone a long way in that. there has been the erroneous information regarding fees. do we agree with that language? i will not say we do. we will respect his efforts to try to address if it is a consumer fraud issue. that is language that addresses the issue you have been raising. this will cost thousands of jobs. it is not disputed that we are 30,000 jobs short where we were two years ago. don't do something that will hurt the economy when it could

be solved without hurting the economy. supervisor campos: can i ask you a quick question? i appreciate comments. one thing that is reported as their companies -- is there are companies that are actually accounting and marketing their services as a way of employers exploiting this loophole to make money. this is what "the wall street journal" reports. there's actually a brochure of this company has circulated that said the funds are not needed and the employer wins because the funds to stay with them, not the city. do you think that is right? do you think what that company is doing, specifically marketing itself to restaurants, to these businesses, for the purpose of using this loophole to make money of consumers, do you think that is correct?

>> i would disagree that they're trying to make money of consumers by the statement you just made. what they are saying, my understanding is, and i am not familiar with the language they may be using, if they are saying there's an official way to meet the mandates required on your thehcso, when an employee does not use the benefit, that the unused portion could return to the employer, i don't think that is an incorrect thing to say. supervisor campos: final question, because there are many authorities, people watching and will be looking at this issue, has the restaurant association referred people to beneflez? -- beneflex? just so we know. >> i don't know. i believe it is an associate member. we have many members who provide various types of human

resources, third-party administrative consulting. i'm not familiar with their marketing in this regard, personally. supervisor campos: can you verify that they have had no involvement with the efforts to market these things? >> what do you mean? supervisor campos: have you been associated with the efforts of beneflex and appealing to businesses to use the service? >> we provide a service to our members so they can communicate with our restaurants. whether it is a dishwater -- dishwasher, insurance and other products. i cannot say there has not been an e-mail that did go out. supervisor campos: that is fine. thank you. i want it to show that the record shows they have had some

communication. >> i would not describe it that way, sir. it is up to your discretion. >> thank you, supervisors. i am an employee at tenderloin housing clinic. i've worked in the tenderloin community as a rights organizer. i think we're all very clear that we're talking about hra's as the only option, not in addition to insurance. you have all been here the last several years. we have cut sf general to the bone. workers are constantly going to give up in order to fund our health care system. it is not fair. it is not a right to have consumers pay once and have taxpayers pay again for services

that are supposed to be covered under the law. if the business community wants to promote and tell each other they need to provide full health insurance, wonderful. that is not a reason to delay. it is extremely important we close this loophole. when i was working, the families i worked with, no one reported having health insurance except for folks who worked in union jobs that had contracts that guarantee it. everyone else, janitors, restaurant workers, room cleaners, they knew hra's existed, but had no idea how to access them and they were afraid to ask. many are afraid of retaliation. the reason they're afraid of retaliation is because they see intimidation every day, not when they're asking to have health care coverage paid for.

to have people have to go, whether english or -- is or is not their first language, having to argue that is unfair to put on an employee. second, and i have had this experience myself, there are issues of medical privacy that can be violated when an employee has to go to a chart and has to try and argue about what they need and how often they need it. for anyone who has ever worked as an at-will employee, giving any impression to your employer that you may not be healthy for some reason is uncomfortable. it can be scary. i think it is important, and our union stands behind it, and our community stands behind closing this loophole and closing and now. thank you for your leadership. supervisor campos: thank you. speaker.

>> good afternoon. i'm director of the office of small business. i am here this afternoon, want to thank supervisor campos for continuing to identify the need that we need to close the loophole. just wanted to note, the commission has not heard of the new piece of legislation and will be doing so on monday, along with supervisor chiu. the new draft still has some of the issues of concern for the commission, which is the potential millions of dollars out of the economy, and the immediate job loss. i will not reiterate much of what is said in a relationship to what has already been stated. a couple of things need to be taken a look at better economic analysis report did not address. types of jobs in the income of

the jobs that will be lost with this. with the current health care security ordinance, there are many businesses i have spoken to that have sort of stunted their growth and chosen not to grow past 19 jobs because they cannot afford the bump up into the 20 or over employees with the ordinance. i think what i want to request is that our small businesses need to be part of the discussion to address the need of what we want to accomplish in san francisco around health care and be able to keep businesses and jobs in the city. at the small business commission, the commission was interested and did state it

wanted to see exact numbers of the businesses using the hra accounts that are not allowing the accounts to be used for health care or severely restricting the use. we will be interested to see what the mayor comes up with in relationship to that. just wanted to state that we want to continue this discussion with all three proposals together. supervisor campos: thank you very much. is there any other member of the public who would like to speak on this item? public comment is closed. ok. no more speakers. thank you to everyone who took the time to speak on this item. i know there are very strong opinions. we appreciate you taking the time.

colleagues, i want to make a couple of points. for the benefit of all the people who have been working on this matter, i wanted to read the list of organizations from threat san francisco that have come out in support of this legislation before you. i want to make sure their voices are heard. many of them could not be your today. there are dozens of organizations. these are those organizations. adolescents help working group, alliance of california for community empowerment,asset building strategies, vernal heights center, california nurses association, california women's agenda, policy for analysis on trade and health, central american resource network, chinese progressive association, city college board of trustees, the clergy in lady

united for economic justice, the coalition on homelessness, community housing partnership, san francisco de labor program and women's collective, the employment law center. the health access, health care for american now, homeless prenatal, jobs for justice, latina breast cancer agency, league of young voters, mission economic development agency commission house and devoted corp., national employment law project, national physician alliance, people organized to win and get -- when employment rights, people organizing for environmental rights, private work, a progressive workers alliance, san francisco building, trades council, the medical society, the labor

council, sci you tend to one, as sciu, unite your local to come a women's community clinic, young workers united, and the building construction trades council. that tells you the broad coalition that is behind this effort. i want to make two points in response to a couple of the things that have been said. it is easy to say this is going to cost thousands of jobs. it is the same parade of horrible things we heard when the ordinance was first introduced. facts have to speak for themselves. the one independent study on the health care security ordinance that was done not by anyone here in the city made it clear that the impact on jobs was not what was expected. there was no job loss because of the ordinance. those people have looked at that

amendment and reached the same conclusion. our economist has made it clear the impact on job growth is minimal and in fact, once this law is implemented, you will continue to have thousands of jobs created in san francisco in the next few years. the last thing i would say is that i do believe, and i do hope that whoever is out there who has the very important task of protecting the consumers of the city and county of san francisco takes a careful look at "the wall street journal" and some of the practices identified. if it is the case that there are companies that are marketing themselves by telling businesses that they can essentially exploit this loophole as a way of making money off of consumers, irrespective of whether or not they meet the technical

requirements of the ordinance, there are a number of consumer protection laws that are still applicable. it is my hope that whoever is charged with protecting consumers in the city and county of san francisco takes a careful look at this. it is not just about workers. it is about consumers being protected. is my hope that that happens. -- it is my hope that that happens. this is an egregious issue. if the facts that are reported in that article are true, that needs to have careful consideration. with that, president chiu, the floor is yours. president chiu: thank you. i want to thank all of the members of the public who have participated in this conversation about an important issue we need to address. i don't think it will be a surprise that i do not support my colleague's legislation in

its current form. that being said, at least with regard to this meeting, i am ok with supporting the motion that we move forward without recommendation. let me explain why. there are a majority of college that have expressed support. we would engage in several weeks of parliamentary procedures that i don't feel we need to do. i would prefer we move forward with an up or down vote on this and call the question. that being said, i also -- i do have an alternative piece of legislation i would like to be considered by the board at some time. i will request that our chair hopefully schedule that legislation in the coming weeks. i understand that will be the case. i do hope that as we have this discussion, it is pretty easy to have both sides going to their corners in thinking about how this issue is described. i don't think it is as clear as

thinking that this is a debate about health care verses no health care. everyone in this room, whether you are from one community or another, believes in the right of all workers to have adequate health care. for me, the issue is, how do we ensure that we provide health care but also minimize job loss? supervisor campos has quoted are city economist on the topic. apparently, we have lost 30,000 jobs over the past two years. 30,000 jobs. i understand some might think his analysis that this piece of legislation will result in the loss of only hundreds of jobs, that is somehow trivial. i don't agree with that. i think every person who loses a job, we have to figure out how to take care of them. i am trying to craft a solution that balance is those needs, make sure we provide the health care that we have to, but make

sure that money is put to use to either hire folks come up with them to work, or provide health care. that is my goal. i appreciate this debate and look forward to continuing discussions on it. thank you. supervisor campos: thank you. supervisor farrell: thank you to chair compos and president chiu. like everyone here, i recognize there's a problem. there's a huge problem. we need to solve it. the question is, how do we deal with it? i like -- i do not support this legislation in its current form. i'm committed to finding a solution. my only biggest disappointment in this debate right now is that we are not doing it here in committee and we are shoving it on to the full board. that being said, we will play parliamentary games if we don't do it. at this point, i will support the motion to send it to the

full board on tuesday and have the up or down vote. i will say that i appreciate president chiu's amendment and i like what i heard from the representative from mayor li's office today. i look forward to considering those together and begin having that debate here in committee so we can vote on it as a full board when we are fully informed. the solution here is not to propose something that will cost jobs in the near term. that is not what we should be doing in economic times. i appreciate the debate. to be clear, i will not support this in its current form. i'm happy to support the motion to move it forward without recommendation. supervisor campos: thank you. i do want to thank the president and supervisor for their patience in listening to a lot of the testimony.

i know it has the long process. with that said, can we entertain a motion to move forward to the full board as a committee for the october 4 meeting? president chiu: i support that motion. supervisor campos: we can take that without objection. the matter is forwarded to the full board. is there any other business before the committee? >> there is no other business. supervisor campos: thank you. meeting is adjourned.