SAMPLE DISAPPOINTED OP-ED #1
As an employer, I place the utmost importance on being able to provide quality health care insurance to my [X number of] employees. With skyrocketing health insurance premiums, reducing benefits or dropping health coverage altogether are becoming the likely fate of my business. While the Senate was unable to pass S. 1955, the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act of 2005, on May 11th, Senate intervention is still needed.
I am disappointed with Senator(s) XX for voting to not allow consideration of S. 1955. S. 1955 would allow the creation of Small Business Health Plans (SBHPs), which would enable businesses, such as mine, to pool resources across state lines to access more affordable health insurance. The debate about SBHPs has been around for over a decade. [She/He/They] know that the ability to offer health care across state lines is a benefit already enjoyed by Fortune 500 companies and unions. With such streamlined administrative costs, it is no coincidence that they also benefit from 15-20% lower premiums than small businesses. S. 1955 would also allow franchisors – a franchisee’s parent company, or umbrella company – to offer health care coverage to their franchisees across state lines.
Many franchisees struggle to afford health insurance for their employees, their families and even themselves, and the franchisors’ hands are tied. Franchising contributes over $1.5 trillion to the national economy each year, accounts for nearly 14 percent of the nation’s private sector employment (18 million jobs are created by franchising) yet the majority of franchisee-owned establishments are small businesses. Often, with the presence of the trademark that franchisees like me have purchased the rights to use, people assume that we are employees of the franchisor. As a franchisee, I am an independent business man/woman, liable for all the payroll, tax, employment and legal compliance issues related to my [store/restaurant/hotel/establishment]. Without the ability to pool together through SBHPs, franchised businesses, and small businesses particularly, are less capable of keeping valuable workers, competing fairly with comparable non-franchised establishments and continuing to contribute to the economy.
Unfortunately, opponents to SBHPs do not understand the importance of small business to the state and national economy. As the number one job creator, small business – the backbone of thousands of local economies, communities, and families – deserves the right to affordable and accessible health care, and many are currently being forced to forgo this right due to prohibitive costs. Senator(s) XX[was/were] unable to separate the rhetoric from the reality, and rather than voting to allow the Senate to hold a direct vote on the bill, [she/he] voted against further allowing the democratic process to work.
I believe in a free market where businesses can compete with one another, but with the balances tipped in favor of large corporations, it is time to level the playing field for small business owners. The Senate must intervene and allow small businesses the same access to affordable health care coverage that big businesses and labor unions enjoy.