Opponents say Obamacare repeal would hit Tennessee small businesses hard

Chattanooga Times Free Press (TN)

Feb. 11--Opponents of repealing Obamacare said Friday that such a move would hit Tennessee's small businesses and entrepreneurs particularly hard.

Repealing Obamacare without a full replacement plan "would be catastrophic for small business," said Lindsay Mueller, Midwest director for the Small Business Majority, a nonprofit group that says it represents the interests of small businesses and entrepreneurs.

"The Affordable Care Act has significantly lowered small business owners' costs," Mueller said. "Before the ACA was passed, small businesses paid significantly more, and received fewer benefits, paying 18 percent more on average for health insurance."

Mueller cited the impact on self-employed entrepreneurs, a group that had difficulty obtaining affordable health insurance in the past, especially if the business owner had a pre-existing medical condition.

"We can't return to the old way of doing business," she said. "Repealing the Affordable Care Act would cause a rapid rise in health care costs, and create tremendous economic instability."

According to a U.S. Treasury Department report issued in January, about one out of every five Obamacare customers, or some 1.4 million people, was either a small business owner, self-employed or both, in 2014, the first year the plans were available. Mueller said about 42,300 Tennesseans were self-employed.

Jenny Rogers, who with her husband owns a small business in Benton, Tenn., joined a conference call organized by the small business group on Friday to say she and her husband would be forced to close their business if the Affordable Care Act is repealed without a suitable replacement.

"We are self-employed with a pre-existing medical condition and, prior to the Affordable Care Act, could only apply for high-risk insurance," Rogers said. "We were paying $1,900 a month for a policy from BlueCross BlueShield. We were forced to drop coverage because we could not afford that on a middle-income salary."

Jennifer Hoff, who started her own grant-writing business in Chattanooga, said she was unable to quit a job where she had health coverage and launch her business until her husband got a job that included health insurance. She said she could not afford to buy a policy prior to the Affordable Care Act.

Repealing the ACA without launching a replacement at the same time will stifle innovation, Hoff said. "It will force people to stay in jobs to keep their health insurance."

Supporting entrepreneurship is key to Chattanooga's continued growth, she said.

"My company has helped to raise more than $27 million for nonprofits in the region, creating lots of jobs," she said.

Both President Trump and the Republican leadership in the U.S. House and Senate have discussed various measures to replace the Affordable Care Act, including retaining the provision forbidding insurance companies from denying coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions.

Overall health care costs in the U.S. have continued to increase, although the rate of increase slowed after the passage of the ACA. Premiums for individuals who purchased health insurance on the ACA exchanges jumped significantly last year, averaging about 25 percent nationally, although the impact of the increase was muted for consumers who qualify for subsidies because the subsidies went up as well.

Contact staff writer Steve Johnson at 423-757-6673, sjohnson@timesfreepress.com, on Twitter @stevejohnsonTFP, and on Facebook, www.facebook.com/noogahealth.

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