On the campaign trail Monday, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Scott Brown continued to rail against the Affordable Care Act, taking aim specifically at the employer mandate.
During an event at North Country Tractor in Pembroke, Brown highlighted a part of the health law yet to kick in: a requirement that businesses with 50 or more full-time employees offer health insurance benefits.
The store’s owner says that’s why he’s stopped hiring at 47 employees.
Brown says it’s an example of how so-called Obamacare is hurting New Hampshire businesses.
“You need to allow businesses like this to take the gloves off and go out and hire. That’s how we’re going to have an economic recovery is to make sure we get businesses and individuals having the confidence that the government isn’t going to be there thwarting those efforts.”
The Massachusetts health care law Brown supported while he was a state senator incorporated a similar employer mandate.
For her part, Democratic incumbent U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen challenged Brown and other Republicans to come up with an alternative.
“They have nothing new to say. Their only answer is they want to repeal the law and when you ask what they’re going to replace it with, they don’t have an answer.”
Later in the day, Brown appeared at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, where he criticized Shaheen for declining to take part in the first U.S. Senate debate.