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Small Businesses Still Have Serious Concerns About Health Care

While President Obama said the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) would help small businesses, the health insurance tax, or HIT, and other elements of the new health care law are working against them and their employees.

According to a recent poll from Public Opinion Strategies, small businesses have serious concerns about the new health law. Sixty-four percent of small business franchise owners said they believe the PPACA will negatively impact their business, compared to just five percent who think it will help. Similarly, 53 percent of small businesses that are not franchises think the law will hurt them.

Of greater concern for small business employees, though, is not that the health law may affect business, but that their employer-sponsored health insurance coverage could disappear. With the HIT substantially increasing costs for families by as much as $500 per year over the first decade, more than a quarter of small businesses surveyed said they planned to stop providing insurance coverage for their employees in 2015.

Small business owners and their employees deserve better. There is bipartisan legislation in Congress to completely repeal the HIT, but in the meantime, Representatives Ami Bera (D-Calif.) and Charles Boustany (R-La.) have introduced a bill to provide immediate relief from this devastating tax. This bill is an important step in the right direction for the 34 million Americans affected by the HIT, and now is the time to show you support protecting small businesses and their employees.