Small Businesses Looking to Congress to Move Reform Forward at Healthcare Summit

Millions of small business owners have been notified recently of double-digit, and in some cases even triple-digit, increases to their healthcare premiums. Their livelihoods are being threatened by our broken system, and they're looking to the members of Congress attending the Feb. 25 healthcare summit not only to keep reform alive, but to continue working to pass legislation this year so they can keep their doors open.

It's becoming more and more difficult for the nation's 28 million small business owners to afford health insurance. More than 60 percent of businesses with fewer than 10 employees no longer offer insurance, and 28 percent of the 22 million self-employed Americans can't afford insurance at all.

These aren't just statistics, they're real people like Tom Grams, a self-employed media consultant in California, whose family just found out that their premium was being raised by 35 percent, on top of last year's 25 percent spike. These rate increases, coupled with the recession, have forced him to start looking for a job with employer-sponsored health insurance which would mean abandoning his consulting business. Tom is one of the 22 million self-employed whose only option for purchasing insurance is on the individual market, and who are subject year after year to these outrageous rate hikes.

Small business owner Walt Rowen, who owns a decorative glass factory in Pennsylvania, was notified by his insurer that his rates would increase by 160 percent this year prompting him, of course, to search for a different plan. But the others he found are still 30 to 80 percent higher than his previous plan, forcing him to require his employees to pay more out of pocket for insurance.

As premiums get higher and higher, more and more small businesses will be priced out of the insurance market. Economic research we commissioned shows that without reform, small businesses will pay $2.4 trillion in healthcare costs over the next 10 years. And 19 percent of employers are planning to stop offering health benefits in the next two to five years, according to a survey by Hewitt Associates, because they simply can't afford it.

Amid all the talk about what small business owners can and can't afford in regard to reform, what we truly cannot bear is a continuation of the status quo. We're counting on Congress to make reform happen. Our futures, and the country's economic health, depend on it.