Release Date: 6/22/2004

Jeff Dinkel, president of Dinkmar Inc. and Partners Manufacturing in Galion, can not afford a health care plan for his employees.

"It's impossible," Dinkel said. "We've talked about it. Last year we tried to get coverage for an employee ... just a basic plan. The premium was $386 per month. Multiply that times your other employees. We can't afford it."

Dinkel isn't alone.

Rochelle Balch owns a computer-consulting firm in Glendale, Ariz. She offers insurance but pays more for it than large companies pay and gets less coverage for her 10 employees.

"We get screwed because we are small," she said

Health benefits are key to attracting talented workers. But most of the nation's 5.6 million small businesses say they can't afford to offer those benefits.

"When we do hire someone, we have trouble keeping them very long," Dinkel said. "They know going in we don't offer insurance. And as soon as they find someone who does I lose an employee."

Uninsured workers at small companies account for 57 percent of all uninsured workers, according to The Commonwealth Fund, a health research group.

One possible solution is to allow small businesses to band together across state lines to form "association health plans" that could negotiate less expensive health care coverage.

"This is an idea that would empower small-business people, get administrative costs down and wouldn't cost a penny," said Republican Sen. Jim Talent of Missouri.

Small businesses, which employ about half the nation's 115 million private-sector workers, list the rising cost of health care as their No. 1 concern.

The Mansfield-Richland Area Chamber offers a health plan that more than 300 of its members use.

"We've had it for 13 or 14 years," Chamber president Kevin Nestor said.

"Health-care costs have gone through the roof in the past three or four years. Through our program, we're trying to lessen that cost."

The chamber plan is patterned after a similar plan offered in the Cleveland area by the Council of Small Enterprises, which is a division of the Greater Cleveland Growth Association.

"Our insurance plan is a pool that together includes all the members," he said. "There is strength in numbers. Those members all share the risk."