Small Biz Health Care Daily: Small Businesses Are Worried

The White House and leaders in Congress continue to declare that big government health care will be just dandy for small businesses. Of course, small business owners are, at best, skeptical of the idea that more government spending, increased regulation, additional mandates, and higher taxes somehow are going to add up as positives for small businesses and their employees when it comes to health care.

Manta.com has just released new survey results on the views of small business regarding the current health care reform efforts. The findings include:

• 77 percent of small business owners are “very concerned” about health care reform.

• In terms of what concerns them most, 44 percent said “escalating costs,” while nearly half said that all of the options presented in the survey warranted concern, i.e., escalating costs, ability to maintain benefits and loss of staff.

• In terms of employers “bearing the brunt of the financial responsibility” for health care measures, 46 percent saw this as unfair.

• And in terms of what costs would need to be cut to maintain benefit levels, 45 percent said they would reduce the number of employees.

It turns out, again and again, that small businesses better understand the harsh realities of more government involvement in health care than do the various politicians pushing such a misguided effort.

Raymond J. Keating
Chief Economist
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council