Smith and Hall talk health insurance

CAMPBELL HALL – To Jimmy Smith, owner of Advanced Testing in Campbell Hall, it has cost him roughly $5 million to provide health insurance coverage for his employees and their families since he began his business some 25 years ago.

In the first 20 years, he paid 100 percent of the coverage. Since 2004, he is paying 75 percent of the coverage for new employees.

“And now with the health insurance tax, the cost increase in health insurance, our numbers alone just in health insurance increase is going to be about $3,000 a month, which is equivalent to a about a $400,000 capital investment.”

Small businessman Richard Rossi is a cancer survivor, but he cannot afford health insurance.

“I’ve had health insurance three times in the last 10 years and the first year may be okay, but when the premiums come along and they are raised 20 or 30 percent, I am so ticked off at the outrageous costs that I am making a point by not having coverage and am just going to deal with it as it comes,” he said.

Congressman John Hall met with Smith, Rossi and a small group of business people Monday and agreed with them that health insurance is breaking the backs of small business.

" We may have the best health care, if you can get it and if you can pay for it, but the problem is it is going to be out of the reach of more and more people if we don’t do something to rein in the costs,” he said.

To help ease the situation, Hall is cosponsoring legislation that would provide a $1,000 per employee or $2,000 per family tax credit to business people who offer health insurance to their employees.