File:Ed Morris On The Impact Of Health Insurance Reform (4444330790).jpg

This afternoon at a press conference in the Capitol, Ed Morris talked about how he will benefit from much-needed health insurance reform:

My name is Dr. Ed Morris. My wife and I own a small business, Franklin Health and Fitness Center, in the little town of Franklin in western North Carolina. As you probably know, more than half of small businesses no longer provide health insurance at all to their employees. Well, why is that? Well, our premiums for our business over the last 10 years tripled. This is a huge cost for our business every year to pay these health insurance premiums. Well, why are our premiums so high? Well, we as a small business are in such a pool that we cannot spread these costs around. One of our employees had cardiac bypass surgery about eight years ago. Well, the next year when the insurance company got these legitimate medical bills, our premiums went out the roof the next year. So to keep offering the coverage to our employees, we had to do two things. First of all, we had to raise our deductibles from $250 to $3,000 for an individual. And secondly, we used to pay 100 percent of the premiums for our employees but in order to continue to have coverage, we now require the employees to pay up to 40 percent of their own premiums. And many of them simply can’t afford that.

Well, what will this bill do to help us? First of all, we will be in a big pool so our cost will be much lower. And secondly, it will prohibit insurance companies from raising our premiums if an employee gets ill and actually has to use the insurance. And third, and probably most importantly for me as a small business owner, beginning this year, I will receive tax credits of up to 35 percent to help cover the cost of these premiums. This will help me continue to provide health insurance for my employees and possibly to hire some new employees to grow my business.

Our congressional district has one of the highest rates of uninsured of anywhere in the country—23 percent are uninsured in our district. We have over 700 bankruptcies every year just in our congressional district. Every year, hundreds of my friends and neighbors suffer because of lack of adequate health insurance and these hundred of medically related bankruptcies, and this huge burden that us small businesses have, businesses just like mine in our little mountains of North Carolina.