C.R. business owner asks Harkin's aid on health care

Last summer, Shawn Gallagher's small business was drowning in six-feet high floodwaters. This fall, Gallagher is struggling to keep his head above a torrent of increasing health care costs. Gallagher, 52, owns Adcraft Printing Co., 309 Fifth Ave. SE, with his wife, Celeste. Their commercial, industrial and screen printing business dates back 52 years. His company provides health care coverage for its four employees, but Gallagher worries that his commitment to his workers' health could cost him his business.

It's gotten to the point where you're paying 10, then 15, then 20,000 a year for health coverage when you still have to pay the other bills, too," Gallagher said. "We'll go out of business before dropping coverage for our employees." In 2006, his insurance provider increased the cost of their coverage by 30 percent. The next year, there was a 16 percent increase. This year, the cost climbed another 12 percent for ensuring that his workers are healthy.

"Right now we're getting less and less coverage for more and more money," Gallagher said.

"We can't handle any more for our premiums." Gallagher's struggle is not unique. A third of Iowa's small businesses have health insurance plans for their employees. A study from the Small Business Majority estimates that the costs of providing health care for employees will double by 2018 without significant reform of the nation's health care industry.

"We will have a bill for the president to sign before Christmas," Sen.

Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, told Gallagher at a small gathering Saturday at Gallagher's business.

"And it will have a public option." Harkin replaced the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy as chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and has become one of the more optimistic voices that governmentrun health insurance will be part of the reform bill that emerges from Congress. He swung through several Iowa cities over the weekend.

"The biggest winners (in the health care reform) are the self-em ployed and the small business owners, because they don't have the bargaining power, the buying power of larger businesses," Harkin told Gallagher.

"With a public option, small businesses won't be at the mercy of insurance corporations, because there will be more competition driving prices down." The five-term senator thinks that a universal exchange will make the cost of doing business easier for small businesses, which, he said, are the lifeblood of the economy.

"So many people have an idea for a small business, but they can't fol low it because they can't afford the health care coverage," Harkin said.

"How many entrepreneurs have we lost because of this?' Gallagher said that larger businesses and companies that can barter for better, cheaper health care plans, can draw quality employees away from smaller businesses like his, which can barely afford a $1,500 deduction.

"We are in a position to hire another person ... to expand," Gallagher said.

"What's holding us back is the cost of health care."