Another Day, Another Small Business Struggles With the High Cost of Health Care

Release Date: 5/12/2004

Paul Zieger of Pennsylvania is the co-owner of Zieger & Sons Inc., a wholesale florist that sells and distributes flowers to retail merchants over a five-state area. Zieger has 80 employees and offers health insurance to his employees -- and payments are shared between employer and employee. This year their overall health insurance premium increased 19 percent and the company has seen premium increases for the last three consecutive years. To complicate matters, because one of Zieger's employees resides in another state and there is no way to offer insurance across state lines, Zieger must offer a more expensive, individual policy to cover his employee. " Zieger & Sons is a family atmosphere with low turnover, which is why it is so important to me to be able to give my employees the benefits they deserve, but as our health-care costs continue to rise we need to be spread over a larger group to keep the costs down," he said. "If we could do that and were able to include my employee from Delaware in the same pool, I might hire from surrounding states in the future. While I continue to struggle to provide affordable coverage, some of the big insurance companies have announced record profits. I support businesses being successful but when I'm faced with double-digit increases every year or when other small businesses cannot provide health insurance to their workers, it seems like the insurance industry is more worried about their profits than my ability to afford health care for my employees. Competition is needed in the small group market so everyone will get a fair shake. Small-Business Health Plans can spur competition and I am hopeful the Senate will support these Small-Business Health Plans,"