What Small Business Owners Want from Obama

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health-care Reform, but no mandates

"Most business owners feel that our outrageous health-care costs significantly impact them and their employees," says Neil Shroff, managing director at Orion Capital Group, a mergers and acquisitions firm in Menlo Park, Calif., and president of a Republican business owners' organization. "With insurance costs rising year after year, it is making U.S. companies uncompetitive. Business owners will appreciate any cost reductions while keeping similar care standards we enjoy today."

But while they want something done, entrepreneurs worry that heavy-handed coverage mandates could drive them out of business. "If the health-care agenda gets rammed through Congress, I will seriously consider having to close my doors," says Dick Olenych, who owns a small printing company in Virginia Beach, Va. "Maybe I could outsource to China?"

Olenych is not alone in his fears. Barbara Monteiro, owner of Monteiro & Company, a boutique book-publicity firm in New York City with five employees, also worries. "What concerns me the most is the possibility that Obama might insist that all businesses offer their employees health insurance. If a law to this effect is put in place, I'll have to greatly reduce my business," she says.

But Ann Sullivan, president of Madison Services Group, a government-relations firm that works closely with Women Impacting Public Policy says she is encouraged by recent comments from the White House. "President Obama said we can't impose mandates on a system that we can't be assured will give affordable rates. I think the small business community breathed a huge collective sigh of relief at that, because he's saying you can't impose mandates without making sure that people can actually benefit from them. That's a great thing," she says.

Small business owners appear to approve of the possibility of having a public health-care option offered alongside the existing private network of health-care insurers, similar to recent polls of the country's populace.

Both Public and private health-care

Given the choice of a public-only plan, a private-only plan, or a plan that includes both public and private insurance options, 70% of small business owners vote for "both" in recent polling done by Small Business Majority, a nonprofit advocacy organization focused on health-care reform. However, the public option is not a high priority for small employers.

"When you ask them what is most important, cost is off the charts number one, followed by things like unfettered access to insurance. Having a public plan is not the most important aspect" of entrepreneurs' thinking on health-care reform, says John Arensmeyer, the group's executive director.

His polling has also shown that entrepreneurs are generally open to new ideas on health-care coverage.Two-thirds—66%—of small business owners support the concept of shared responsibility between employers and government for health care and a majority says they are willing to put in 3% of their payroll to pay for coverage in some kind of pooled-insurance arrangement, Arensmeyer says. "Although 30% to 35% say they are not willing to contribute anything in additional costs to fund health-care reform, a majority are willing to step up to the plate. We think there is an openness among small business owners to accept a role in the system," he says.

If they've done nothing else, issues like health-care reform and tax increases have galvanized small business owners to become more active politically, many experts say.

"If you talk to elected officials, they'll tell you that at every town hall meeting they go to, there's a small business person there saying, `Are you ever going to do anything for us? This [recession] is killing us!" Sullivan says. "It's a grassroots effort that hasn't even been organized, but small business owners realize that they have to get engaged if they want to see a change."

Karen E. Klein is a Los Angeles-based writer who covers entrepreneurship and small-business issues.

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