Moving in the Right Direction

Obamacare has been a disaster across the country, and small businesses have endured more than their share of the pain. For nearly seven years, the law has increased costs, limited choices, and made it more difficult for small businesses to provide health care coverage for their employees.

As one small business owner, Thomas Secor, recently explained to members of the House Small Business Committee:

Health care is certainly one of the most vexing problems facing small businesses. The enormous costs and ongoing uncertainty surrounding our health insurance system is a major cause for concern. As a business operator, I am deeply troubled by the ongoing difficulties our health care system creates for my fellow small-business owners and their employees, and by the fact that the most recent national effort to reform the health care system has done very little to address the costs we, as small-business owners, face.

Secor went on to say that from 2013 to 2017, the average cost to provide his employees with health insurance increased by nearly 52 percent — hindering his ability to hire new workers. And he’s not the only small business owner the law has negatively affected.

A recent American Action Forum study found that nearly 300,000 small business jobs were lost and 10,000 small businesses closed as a result of Obamacare’s regulations. The study also found that Obamacare’s regulations cost small business employees at least $19 billion in lost wages every year.

Americans have suffered for far too long under a government-takeover of healthcare. It’s time to implement the necessary reforms that will lower health care costs for working families and empower small businesses to provide high-quality coverage for their employees. That’s why Congress is taking steps to repeal and replace Obamacare with patient-centered reforms.

As Rep. Francis Rooney (R-FL) recently wrote:

Patients, doctors, and businesses have been dealing with the failures of Obamacare since it was enacted. Millions of hardworking Americans have felt the pain of skyrocketing costs and plummeting levels of care. … There is no escaping the fact that President Obama left our health care system in shambles. It's going to take focused leadership to fix this broken system and put patients first.

As Congress works to provide small businesses with the relief they need from Obamacare’s harmful regulations, we must promote health care reforms that provide more choices and lower costs for both workers and employers. With these reforms, we can ensure more Americans have access to truly affordable, patient-centered care.

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