Keeping Small Businesses Healthy

Keeping Small Businesses Healthy
by Congressman Jeff Fortenberry

This week I had an exciting opportunity to bring a little piece of official Washington back to eastern Nebraska. Chairman of the House Small Business Committee, Don Manzullo, graciously joined me in hosting a field hearing right here in Nebraska.

The topic was one that I often hear when I speak with farmers and entrepreneurs: How can we deal with the rising cost of health insurance?

Small businesses represent the heart of entrepreneurship. Small business, including family farms, is where most families are trying to get a little bit ahead in life. This is where products are made and delivered with the imprint of a person, where workers and owners can most directly take responsibility for production and service, and where they receive the full fruit of their labor.

For every single large corporation in America, there are 300 smaller ones. These smaller companies employ half of the total private work force, and consistently produce around 75 percent of the new jobs in our country. Small business is the key to long-term economic well-being for families.

We should seek to reward this efficiency and dynamism, encouraging the creativity that entrepreneurs represent. Yet increasingly the rising cost of providing health coverage for employees is a growing obstacle for small businesspersons, or those who might wish to join their ranks.

Insurance premiums for small business doubled between 1994 and 1999, a much more dramatic rise than that faced by larger corporations. It is no surprise that only 63 percent of smaller companies can even afford to offer health insurance, one reason that three out of five uninsured persons in our nation are small business owners, employees, and their families.

A decade ago, government regulation was most often listed as the single most important problem that small businesses faced. Today the cost and availability of health insurance is a top complaint — some 30 percent of small businesses fear this more than anything else. This fact discourages the creation of small businesses, keeps them from hiring, and limits who they can attract to work for them.

A number of innovative solutions have been proposed, and it is important that we promote those that make the most sense to the hard-working Americans in the small business community.

Some proposals would seek to provide relief to small businesses via the tax code, including additional measures of support for Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). By involving consumers more directly in medical decisions, rising costs can be mitigated and insurance savings achieved. Better use of technology for medical administration as well as lawsuit abuse reform measures can also reduce costs.

America provides the finest health care in the world, yet rising cost lead a growing number of young workers to spare the expense and opt out of insuring themselves. We need to work hard to provide them with common sense options that allow them to provide themselves with the protection they deserve.

http://www.house.gov/list/speech/ne01_fortenberry/wc_060505.html