Health Care & Prescription Drugs News

PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release                                                  

October 8, 2009

 

Contact:

Rebecca Alper

Mobile: 617-840-5999

Office: 609-394-8155 x313

ralper@njpirg.org

 

Local Small Business: “If I Ran My Business the Way Health Care Does, I’d Have to Shut My Doors”

Consumer Group Report Shows Small Businesses Struggling With Rising Health Care Costs

 

Montclair, NJ, Oct. 8, 2009— New Jersey small business owners are being crushed by rising health care costs according to a new report released by New Jersey Public Interest Research Group today.

 

“Inefficiencies and waste in health care are driving up the costs of coverage for small businesses throughout the state,” said New Jersey Public Interest Research Group’s Program Associate, Rebecca Alper.  “Our report gathers stories from small business owners across the state, and the problems are always the same: unaffordable policies, insurance company abuses, and an inefficient system drowning in red tape.”

 

The new report, Small Businesses at Risk, makes clear that small business owners, like Paul Nippes, of Montclair’s Just Kidding Around, need health care reform.

 

“Health care right now is such a problem that if I tried to run my business they way they run theirs, I’d lose all of my customers,” Nippes said.

 

In an event releasing the report, Nippes used his own toy store to demonstrate leading health care problems:

 

·        While big businesses can get a good price for coverage, small businesses and individuals pay 18% or more for the exact same policy.  For Nippes’ toy store, that would be like selling toys to large families at affordable prices, but selling the same toys to families with one or two children at higher prices.

·        In the health care system, premiums have doubled over the last ten years, and they're set to double again over the next eight.  If Nippes’ prices had been going up like health care costs over the last decade, a simple teddy bear would cost close to $100 today.  And customers would be shelling out over $175 by 2016.

 

 “In any other business, consumers wouldn’t tolerate these sky-high prices, rampant inefficiencies, and customer abuses without walking out,” concluded Rebecca Alper.  “But lack of competition and skewed incentives have turned our health care system into a nightmare.  It’s time for Congress to pass strong reforms, including a public health insurance option, to lower costs and rein in these insurers.”

 

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NJPIRG, federation of state Public Interest Research Groups, is a non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy organization. For more information visit http://www.njpirg.org/