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Many small-business owners who want to provide health coverage for their workers will back reform because the current situation inflicts large and growing burdens on them. Audrey Rinker, owner of a graphics shop in New Port Richey, Florida, has been denied coverage by three insurance companies because her workers have pre-existing illnesses. Says Rinker: "We need something done right now." Even when they can get insurance, small companies pay some of the highest rates. Barbara Silver Miller, co-owner of a vending-machine firm in Phoenix, Arizona, has seen premiums for her employees rise 20% to 30% a year.
To reform this festering mess, some Clinton officials argue privately, the transitional loss of a few hundred thousand jobs is not a high price to pay. Certainly not in an economy that employs 120 million workers and creates 2 million jobs a year. Yet for the individuals involved, a single job lost on a Nebraska farm isn't really "a net wash" when a new job -- requiring relocation and training -- is created in a Detroit auto plant.