Alliance aims to push debate on health care
Many people get frustrated by gridlock, whether it's traffic or political. Of the two, the political kind has far worse effects on our economy. So four leading organizations have decided to do something about it.

TODD STOTTLEMYER NFIB President and CEO

The National Federation of Independent Business, AARP, the Service Employees International Union and the Business Roundtable, a group of CEOs of leading American companies, have come together in a coalition called Divided We Fail.

Collectively, we represent the 25 million small businesses in this country, along with big business, consumers and labor groups - more than 53 million people, including employees and dependents. We seek to engage the American public, elected officials and the business community to find broad-based, bipartisan solutions to address what has become a national crisis, especially for America's job creators - health care and its impact on our nation's long-term economic competitiveness.

Healthy, growing small businesses are vital to our economy. Yet, of the estimated 46 million Americans without health care, more than 27 million are small-business owners, employees or dependents of small businesses.

Less than half of small businesses can afford to offer a health-insurance plan as a benefit. Fewer, about 30 percent, can afford to offer retirement plans. This is simply not acceptable.

For 20 straight years, small businesses have said that health-care costs are their number one issue. But things haven't gotten any better. In fact, they're getting worse. We must find a way to fundamentally alter the forces driving costs, or our efforts will be for naught.

No discussion of health care should take place without America's job creators at the table. We believe this coalition will spur our nation's political leaders to start working together to take on the threats to America's health care and our overall economic competitiveness. We will do nothing less than commit every resource to fight for a health-care system that makes affordable, quality health care available to everyone.

If we truly want to provide coverage for all while protecting our economy, the real focus should be on small business' biggest concern - the cost of health insurance. Reduce costs, and we can increase coverage. We also need a national solution, not piecemeal, state-by-state attempts.

Our research shows that for small-business owners, the broad principles of the solution include:

• Increasing competition by breaking down the barriers that exist to selling insurance to small businesses, such as market pooling

• Providing complete transparency in the costs of treatments and the outcomes of those treatments so that we become better-educated consumers of health care and can make informed decisions

• Making health insurance portable from job to job (which also would encourage more would-be entrepreneurs to start a business without worrying about losing coverage).

Todd Stottlemyer is president and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business in Washington, D.C.