04/24/2008
CONTACT: Derrick Sontag, 785-354-9374 or Todd Pack, 615-872-5897
Small businesses pay more for same benefits as large companies
TOPEKA, Kansas -- Small businesses don't have the same bargaining power as big companies when it comes to negotiating with health insurers, so they end up paying 18 percent more for essentially the same benefits, said Michelle Dimarob, legislative affairs manager with the National Federation of Independent Business, the nation's leading small business association.
"When you're a small employer, the fact is there aren't as many health plans competing for your business," Dimarob said. "You take whatever health plans you can get, and you're lucky to get anything."
Dimarob was at NFIB/Kansas meetings in Wichita on Tuesday, April 22, and Overland Park and Topeka on Wednesday, April 23, to talk about the group's healthcare reform campaign, called Solutions Start Here. With its month-old campaign, NFIB is urging policymakers at the state and federal levels to develop healthcare reforms that support small business.
Of the 47 million Americans without basic health insurance, 27 million are small business owners or their employees or dependents, Dimarob said. "You can't solve the healthcare crisis in this country without input from small business," she said.
"Small business is the heart and soul of the state's economy," said Derrick Sontag, state director of NFIB/Kansas.
Small business accounts for 97 percent of the state's employer firms and 55 percent of its workforce, but most small businesses can't afford to offer health benefits. Nationwide, only 47 percent of small businesses offer medical coverage, according to the NFIB Research Foundation survey. One percent to 2 percent of small businesses drop health benefits every year, and many startups can't afford to offer health insurance to begin with, the survey said.
Sontag said politicians need to listen to what small business has to say. Small business represents a voting bloc larger than soccer moms and NASCAR dads, he said, and they're insisting that action be taken to address the healthcare crisis.
"Small business has reached the breaking point," Sontag said. "When healthcare is fixed for small business, it's fixed for America."
