Small businesses worry about health costs, favor reform

A poll of 200 small businesses in Virginia found that most consider health-care reform important to getting the economy back on track, according to Small Business Majority.

The survey also found that 54 percent of Virginia small businesses do not provide health insurance, with the vast majority saying they could not afford it.

The poll was conducted by Lake Research for Small Business Majority, a California-based nonprofit that says it brings a nonpartisan, small-business perspective to the health-care reform debate. It sponsored a conference call Tuesday with several Virginia small-business owners to discuss results of a June telephone survey on how business owners feel about health-care reform.

"Health-care costs are killing small business, and they need and want reform," said Robert Wolfe, president and CEO of AvcomEast Inc., based in Vienna in Northern Virginia.

He said his 7-year-old company fully funded individual and family coverage for employees during its first five years. But rising costs over time forced the company to modify contributions to coverage for the firm's 18 employees.

"Reform would give us bargaining power," said Tammy Rostov, owner of Rostov's Coffee & Tea in Richmond.

She said insurance premiums for her employees went up 80 percent over the past four years. "We switched to a high-deductible plan that fixed it for a year. . . . Now I'm back in the same boat I was before," Rostov said.

Michael Ortner, owner of an Arlington-based small business, said his firm's health costs went up 50 percent even though his employees are in their 20s and 30s with no major health issues. His Web-based firm, Capterra, links buyers and sellers of software.

"The more we are paying for health insurance, the less is left over to pay employee raises," Ortner said.

The poll has a margin of error of 6.9 percentage points. Small businesses were defined as those with up to 100 employees.

Among results:

• 66 percent said health-care reform is important for getting the economy back on track.

• 46 percent said they pay for health insurance for employees. Of those, 76 percent said they struggle to do so.

• 79 percent support choice of a public or private plan; 13 percent want private-only options; 5 percent prefer only a public option.

• 39 percent identified themselves as Republican, 23 percent as Democrat and 28 percent as independent.

• 59 percent believe their company has a responsibility to offer health coverage to employees.

Oliver R. Singleton, president of the Metropolitan Business League in Richmond, said health-care reform is important to his organization's members, which include startups and small and large businesses.

To remain vital, small businesses need to remain competitive and offer security and stability to workers and their families, he said.

"We cannot let an honest conversation be obscured by death panels and the hyperbole," Singleton said, citing a survey by The Commonwealth Fund that found that 52 percent of those working for small businesses are uninsured or underinsured.

Contact Tammie Smith at (804) 649-6572 or .