Comments on: Presidential candidates: Look who’s still standing!

By: Lisa Dolan

Lisa Dolan — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:28:50 +0000

I own a company with 124 employees. We are a small business as well. However, when I went from 50 employees to 124 our current insurance company would no longer give us a quote for “small business”, but they could not put us in the “big business” pool because we did not qualify. We had to shop around for an insurance company that was affordable yet had benefits that were worth paying for! If Hillary or Obama get elected, they will force small business to pay for the health benefits and then tax us all to death to pick up the difference. At least on the Republican side, they are talking about making it affordable to “John Q Public” which is only fair. I certainly don’t think any of the candidates understand small business. I believe if they picked a running mate who understood what it is to run a business (Romney) and the obstacles and barriers that we face as business owners, that candidate would be very successful!

By: Valerie Freeman

Valerie Freeman — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:16:50 +0000

I own a company with 65 employees. Our health insurance premiums for each employee went up $145 per employee per month last year for the PPO and $95 for the HSA. We had to change companies and increase deductibles in order to get that increase down and it didn’t go down very much. There are only three or four insurance companies in Texas that would even give us quotes. We feel stuck as well as abused by the insurance industry. We have almost no choices that are viable. We would like to either be able to band together and go after bigger group rates or we would like to get health insurance out of our companies as it makes us no money and we spend too much time on it for no real return. Employees gripe about it constantly and we’ve had several leave to go to bigger companies where they are able to get better rates. I don’t really think it’s fair for large companies to be able to use health insurance as a competitive advantage. And I certainly don’t understand why Congress refuses to pass legislation preventing companies my size for banding togehter except that I know the insurance industry makes its profit off of the back of smaller companies and their employees. We are not allowed to discrminate against people who have health problems when we hire them yet the insurance companies can look at our company health premium history and discriminate against us by raising our premiums so that they can make even more money. Obama and Clinton think that the solution is to force companies to pay for health insurance — they never talk about how they are going to get it affordable. In the 80’s this was never an issue — premiums were low and nobody even worried about this. Now it is huge because of the cost which can run over $1,000 a month for a family. That is absolutely ridiculous for insurance. Plus now when you go to the doctor (who usually spends less than 5 minutes with you) and to the hospital (for even a minor emergency) you keep getting bills and more bills that total an unbelievable amount of money. I even got a bill for $12.00 for something that happened to me over a year ago!!
So it’s not only the insurance companies but also the health care system itself that seems to be charging an enormous amount for the time and effort expended on caring for people. The whole system is a nightmare and I haven’t heard one good solution from any of the candidates.

By: Nancy Zurbuchen

Nancy Zurbuchen — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:06:14 +0000

Which candidates understand small business? On the Democrat side: doesn’t matter, neither Hillary nor Obama get it. Most Democrats don’t seem to understand the economic role of small business. They don’t understand the risk/reward balance; therefore they really don’t think making a whole lot of money as a business owner is a good thing. Instead, they invariably want to tax it to death. Oh, over the years there have certainly been some Dems who have championed an occasional, visible bill that benefits small business. But they just can’t seem to get their heads around the idea that what is good for the small business owner is also good for the employees in the long run. I don’t see anything different coming out of either Hillary or Obama, so far.
On the Republican side: There is little doubt that John McCain is a true and selfless leader in good times and bad. What he needs is a running mate that has small (and large) business experience to balance out the ticket. His biggest faux pas that will haunt him until the November election was his vocal opposition to the Bush tax cuts.