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I've owned a small business in this community for 25 years, and I'm so proud to call Grand
Rapids my home. In 25 years, I have provided healthcare for my employees every single year,
and until recently I covered 100% of it. In 2011 my premiums went up 24.5%. Pretty significant,
and that was even with making plan changes. The past few years were not as bad, 8, 9%,
but we made significant plan changes. I'm still covering my employees, but they now
cover a tiny portion of it. You all hear the stories, but think about being a small business
owner and next year they tell me of 47-57%. And that is significant. I have many 20-somethings,
young families with children. It's significant when you look at that as the cost of doing
business. I think some people would think it is counter-intuitive that a small business-person
says yes give me this expansion. But really if you think about it the more access we provide-
and small businesspeople have lots of common sense. It doesn't take a rocket scientist
to figure out that this is critical. If we do this expansion it means small business
owners like myself have a mechanism for controlling some of those costs. I think if we don't do
it my costs will go even higher. I know they will. I know it seems like its not logical
but its so logical that we do this. I'm not here just speaking on behalf of myself. Many
of you here know I've been associated with the Small Business Association of Michigan
for many years. We now represent over 20,000 small business owners, and we are right there
with the governor because we believe it's important. It's good for the state its good
for our community, its good for small business owners like myself. One personal note, over
ten years ago I did some videos for the Kent county health department. It was all about
educating the community about the importance of managed care. Over ten years ago we were
talking about this, we were talking about people not going to emergency rooms, about
providing them a better way to get their healthcare. Some ten years we're still here talking. I
believe its time to get something done. I hope that you will all join us, join SPAM
in talking to the folks who can really make it happen.