NFIB Begins Campaign To Promote Health Care Concerns of Small Businesses to Presidential Candidates

The National Federation of Independent Business on Wednesday began a campaign that will ask presidential and congressional candidates to address the concerns of small businesses in their health care proposals, CQ HealthBeat reports. As part of the campaign, NFIB sent letters to Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) and presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).

NFIB did not endorse a specific health care proposal but expressed opposition to plans that would require employers to offer health insurance to employees or pay into a federal fund to provide coverage. According to NFIB President and CEO Todd Stottlemeyer, the group supports proposals under which small businesses would receive similar benefits -- such as pooled risk and tax equity -- as large companies. NFIB also supports proposals that would make health insurance portable, Stottlemeyer said. He added that NFIB has not taken a position on proposals that would require all U.S. residents to obtain health insurance.

NFIB said that employees at small businesses and their dependents account for more than half of all residents who lack health insurance. Stottlemeyer said, "Small businesses have seen health care insurance premiums increase by 129% in the past eight years. Just as importantly, health care costs have outpaced wages by two-and-a-half times" (Cooley, CQ HealthBeat, 3/12).

American Public Media's "Marketplace Morning Report" on Wednesday reported on the campaign. The segment includes comments from Stottlemeyer (Dimsdale, "Marketplace Morning Report," American Public Media, 3/12). Audio and a transcript of the segment are available online.

Opinion Pieces
Two opinion pieces related to health care in the presidential election appear below.

• Robert Goldberg, Daily Oklahoman: The health care proposals announced by Clinton and Obama have received "much attention," but their plans to "create a government agency to evaluate the relative impact of various drugs" have received "scant notice," Goldberg, president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, writes in a Daily Oklahoman opinion piece. He adds, "This idea is fraught with dangers," as, both at "home and abroad, 'comparative effectiveness' has come to mean finding the cheapest treatments available -- even mandating their use over more effective but pricier alternatives." The "results can be frightening" when "cost-effectiveness becomes paramount," Goldberg writes, adding, "In theory," studies on the comparative effectiveness of medications and medical devices "could help patients and their doctors make more informed decisions about treatments," but "thus far, it appears as if the government is more interested in using such studies to cut costs -- not improve patient outcomes." He concludes, "Perhaps voters should ask Clinton and Obama if they share the government's single-minded focus on costs, too" (Goldberg, Daily Oklahoman, 3/12).
  
  
• Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), Philadelphia Inquirer: McCain must change his positions on some "social issues," such as embryonic stem cell research, to obtain the support of conservative Republicans, Santorum writes in an Inquirer opinion piece. In the past, McCain voted in favor of legislation that would expand federal funding for such research, but at that time "things were different," Santorum writes. According to Santorum, new studies have found that "embryonic stem cell research is not only unnecessary, but with the advent of embryonic-like adult stem cells, it is now counterproductive, since it would displace money for more promising research." He adds, "The science --- and the moral components of the debate -- have changed. Can he?" (Santorum, Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/13).