Wisconsin group says small business needs health reform

LA CROSSE (WPR) One Wisconsin group says many small businesses will have to drop healthcare coverage or close their doors without reform.

The national percentage of small businesses offering health care coverage went from 68% in 2000 to 59% this year.  That’s according to Shannon Nelson, of the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group, or WISPIRG.  She says rising healthcare costs will force small businesses to cut 178,000 jobs by 2018. Nelson says annual premiums for small business owners and employees have more than doubled since 1999, and the problem will only get worse. The WISPIRG report suggests health care costs will double again by the end of the next decade.

The co-owner of The Root Note, a coffee shop in La Crosse says she’d go out of business if she raised prices to reflect inflation of healthcare premiums. Corrie Brekke says a latte would cost $5.71 today and by 2016, customers would pay $10.48 for that same latte if coffee prices mirror projected health care increases.

Brekke says the high cost of health insurance prevents her from providing healthcare for her workers and herself.  She says right now all she can do is keep her doors open and keep her workers employed.  WISPIRG says 26 million of the nation’s 46 million uninsured are small business owners, employees, and their dependents.

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Information from Wisconsin Public Radio, www.wpr.org