Small biz reluctant to back universal health care
 

WASHINGTON – April 17, 2007 – Big business supporters of health insurance coverage for all Americans are wooing support from small businesses with mixed results.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses, which is the nation’s largest small-business organization with a half-million members, refuses to be supportive. Executive vice president Dan Danner says his group fears its members will get stuck paying the tab.

Karen Kerrigan, president of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, a conservative advocacy group says, “If any health-care plan includes government mandates or costs on the small-business sector, it’s going to be very difficult to pass.”

Kerrigan lists these small business priorities:

• Allow entrepreneurs to lower their insurance premiums by buying into larger pools of multiple small firms.
• Break down regulatory barriers by allowing small businesses to pick insurance offerings in any state, not just in their home base.
• Give sole proprietors the same kind of health-care tax break that larger employers get.
• Expand health savings accounts and give small employers more tax incentives to offer HSAs to their workers. 

Behind the big business effort are a coalition of 16 large business organizations including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Hospital Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans and some companies like Johnson & Johnson, Kaiser Permanente and Pfizer.

Source: Business Week, Richard S. Dunham and Keith Epstein (04/16/2007)
 

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