Business group unveils health care initiative, data

The share of small-business owners who can provide health insurance to their employees has dropped from 67 percent in 1995 to 38 percent in 2008, the National Small Business Association said last week, and small-business owners now see health care reform as their top priority.
The group released the data last Monday at the launch of a new health care initiative timed to coincide with Cover the Uninsured Week.
The initiative, called Health Reform Today, stresses the need to enact broad health care reform that, as the group put it, “places individual health care consumers at the center of the equation.” It is the third major iteration of the NSBA’s health care policy, which was first crafted in 1993 and was revised in 2004.
The policy agenda includes “individual responsibility,” modified community rating on a federally defined benefit package, low-income subsidies, tax incentives based on the cost of the federal package, and enhanced quality, transparency and use of information technology.
The agenda is accompanied by profiles of small-business owners and their challenges to provide meaningful health care for their employees, as well as results from a recent survey of NSBA members on the state of the U.S. health care system.
The survey found more than one-fifth of small businesses reported annual premium increases in excess of 20 percent over the past four years. In 2008, 28 percent reported an increase in excess of 20 percent.
“The cost of health care is becoming a significant barrier to many considering opening their own business,” said David Stetler, NSBA chair of health and human resources. “Small business creates the overwhelming majority of new jobs and innovations, and Congress must do all it can to ensure that entrepreneurship remains a viable option, including removing barriers such as the hugely burdensome cost of health care.”
Founded in 1937, the National Small Business Association is the country’s first advocacy organization for entrepreneurs. For more information, visit www.nsba.biz. For more information about the survey and the policy agenda, go to www.HealthReformToday.org.