Only 21 percent of Alaska's small business owners provide health insurance coverage to their employees. That's half the national average of 42 percent, according to a survey released Aug. 6 by Small Business Majority, a nonprofit small business advocacy and research organization.
Despite this, 47 percent of Alaska small business owners surveyed felt that they have a responsibility to help provide coverage to employees.
Small businesses are defined as companies employing 100 workers or fewer.
Terry Gardiner, former speaker of the state House of Representatives and a former Alaska business owner, is working with the group as its health policy director. Gardiner helped lead a briefing on the Alaska survey results.
John Arensmeyer, Small Business Majority's CEO, said the poll of the 300 Alaska small businesses conducted in June found that of the firms not providing coverage, 92 percent said it was not affordable.
"That's not surprising, because we have found that Alaska has the highest health insurance premiums in the nation and the two insurers control 92 percent of the market," Arensmeyer said.
The top concern of small business owners is controlling costs, followed by desire for a system that assures high quality, standard minimum benefits and provides coverage for everyone.
The survey included 100 independent fishermen, as well as the 300 business owners. Fishermen differed from business owners in that their top priority was getting everyone covered by insurance, with cost-control as a second priority, Arensmeyer said.
The survey also found that 64 percent of small business owners and 72 percent of the fishermen supported the idea that individuals, employers, the government and health care providers should share responsibility for making medical care more affordable, and that a large majority (82 percent of business owners and 84 percent of fishermen) agreed that people should be able to buy health insurance without regard to past health problems.
Two Alaska small business owners participated in the briefing and supported the conclusions of the survey. Perry Merkel, owner of Caf Del Mundo in Anchorage, said his policy has been to offer insurance to workers that have been with him six months and work at least 25 hours a week.
"Thirteen to 15 years ago, health insurance was very affordable and we were able to cover 100 percent of the premiums with a $250 deductible," paid by the employee, Merkel said. "Last year, we saw premiums at the highest levels they've ever been and we had to ask employees to pay 25 percent of the premiums with a $2,500 deductible.
"In our next renewal, I'm afraid that we may be looking at $5,000 deductibles," he said. "I feel like I'm being kicked in the stomach."
Merkel said he provides coverage for employees because it helps attract higher-quality workers, "and because I believe it's just the right thing to do."
Debbie Retherford, owner of the Fence Emporium in Wasilla, said she feels it is essential for her small firm to provide insurance for its three full-time workers because they are older than 50 and one has had past health problems. Coverage has been getting more expensive, however.
"We saw a 40 percent jump in costs in one year," Retherford said. "Over the past five years I've had to increase our deductible from $500 to $2,500."
In the Aug. 6 briefing, Arensmeyer said that despite the roiling political debate in Congress and on national radio talk shows, there are many ideas in health care reform that have bipartisan support and are likely to be included if a package of legislation is passed.
One is the notion that insurance shouldn't be denied because of pre-existing conditions is widely accepted, even by insurers, Arensmeyer said.
Secondly, there is also bipartisan support, despite sharp differences over details, for the idea of insurance exchanges, basically pools of large groups of people that would spread out risks of health problems for people of different ages and health histories.
A third priority widely accepted is to control rising health insurance costs and health care costs. Some form of tax support for insurance for lower and even middle-income people is also accepted, Arensmeyer said. There are disagreements over the details in all of these ideas, he said.
The big disputes are mainly centered in three areas.
One is in "shared responsibility," or how the burdens and responsibilities should be allocated between individuals, employers and the government. Another is whether there should be a "public option" for coverage, a program sponsored by a government agency that would be an alternative to private insurance. A third is how the government support for all of this would be financed.
Small Business Majority is based in the San Francisco Bay area and was founded by Arensmeyer with a handful of partners a few years ago.
The group focuses its efforts on research and analysis of how small employers are affected by public policy initiatives, and is nonpartisan, Arensmeyer said.
Tim Bradner can be reached at
tim.bradner@alaskajournal.com.
