The Change that Works crew met up at Venus Rising, a local coffee shop, to meet with some of our coalition partners and members of the press who were going to tag along with our canvass of local small business owners. As we fanned out across Main, Park and Granite, we came across a variety of small business owners who are struggling with the cost of insuring themselves and their employees. Almost every small business owner filled out our survey, and most asked their employees and customers to fill the survey out as well.
One small business owner who we encountered hasn't had insurance in over 15 years. He and his wife are currently $30,000 in debt due to a thyroid cancer scare that happened over 5 years ago. The same small business owner's former business partner had fallen into $150,000 worth of debt due to a medical situation, an amount that forced him to leave the business he had helped to create.
Similar to our small business owner, Margaret Novack, of Chester, small business owners in Butte are struggling to afford the skyrocketing costs of insuring themselves and their employees. While almost every employer would like to provide affordable coverage to their employees, what we have found is that most of these owners have to make tough decisions based on the bottom line, oftentimes sacrificing their own sense of stability to keep their companies in business. Reform that is affordable for all Americans, and takes into special consideration the needs of small business owners is vital to the revival of Main Streets across Montana, and the United States.
