Health Care Reform: What Small Business Wants

"As Congress prepares to do battle over health reform, a parallel dispute is shaping up among small-business groups that are staking out opposing positions on a key element of reform proposals: whether Uncle Sam will take on a bigger role in offering insurance coverage or leave the field to the private market," CNN Money reports. A fierce critic of the Clinton administration's health care reform efforts a decade ago, the [National Federation of Independent Business] now considers universal health care to be one of its top legislative priorities. But it wants to see that care and coverage come from the private sector." The NFIB supports "a reform plan that would provide universal coverage and cut costs by increasing competition among private insurers, likely through the creation of government-mediated insurance pools." But "the Main Street Alliance, founded last year to lobby on behalf of small-business owners around health reform, says its survey of 1,200 small business operators and self-employed entrepreneurs in the 12 states where it operates found that 59% prefer a public option, with only 26% wanting more private plan choices alone" (deMaus, 7/2).