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Small Business Owners Split over the Affordable Care Act

If you’re a small business owner, you know providing health insurance for yourself, family and team is difficult. And with Obama’s Affordable Care Act, it all depends on how much money you make.

“Being able to buy health insurance that didn’t completely break us financially was key to our ability to take the risk and become entrepreneurs,” said Sarah McCarthy a talent agent in Los Angeles. She said the health care plan allowed her to start her business, and for two years, her income was low enough that she qualified for subsidized coverage.

However, not every small business owner feels this way. Business owners with a few dozen or more employees often resent the cost and regulatory burden of complying with the law’s mandates. Their premiums are higher than before.

“Small-business owners are deeply disappointed,” said Jack Mozloom, a spokesman for the group. “The high cost of health care has been the No. 1 concern for small-business owners for more than three decades. Obamacare made that problem worse, driving up costs and shrinking choices.”

Small-business owners generally face a higher per-person insurance cost for themselves and their employees than large employers because individuals and smaller groups are inherently more risky to insure—therefore more expensive.

One New Jersey couple, Leah and David Gomberg, a home stager and a self-employed psychologist, took a big hit from Obamacare. Their premium doubled for an individual family policy with a narrower network and more out-of-pocket costs. “It’s just sucking the life out of us financially,” Ms. Gomberg said.

Not to say every one of these individuals oppose the Affordable Care Act, they’d just like to see the benefits spread around more evenly. They like the safety net it provides but are frustrated at the high individual costs involved in making the system work.

This article is excerpted from Small Businesses Split Over Republican Health Plans.

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