Although more than one-third of small business owners polled in a CNNMoney-Manta survey said the U.S. economy is in better shape than last year, only 14 percent are adding more workers, and two-thirds aren’t hiring at all.
The U.S. economy relies heavily on the success of small businesses, and President Obama agrees, calling them the “engines of job creation” and “essential to strengthening our national economy.” Our dependency on the success of small businesses makes these findings that much more alarming. To keep these engines running, it is critical that public policies encourage and support their growth. This means we need to reduce the financial burden that keeps our small businesses, like those polled in the CNNMoney survey, from hiring.
The health insurance tax (HIT) is an obvious example of how we’ve placed an unfair burden on small businesses. As one of the largest taxes included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the HIT is levied on health insurance companies operating in the fully-insured market, where 88 percent of small businesses purchase their coverage. The tax will be directly passed to consumers, and as a result, families will pay about $500 more in health insurance premiums per year.
With health insurance costs steadily rising, this is a concern for all Americans. A Politico article cited the recently released 2013 Milliman Medical Index, which noted that health insurance for the typical American family of four is up 6.3 percent from last year. To put this into perspective, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says families are now paying more for health insurance than for groceries annually.
Implementation of the HIT is only months away, so now is the time to take action to protect small business employees and their families. Currently, both the House and Senate have introduced legislation that would repeal the HIT. By taking action now to repeal this discriminatory tax, we can protect the affordability of healthcare for millions of families who simply cannot afford another hit to their household budgets. Sign our petition to tell Congress to support economic growth by supporting small businesses by repealing the HIT.