Health Costs Push Small Business Owners to Contact Elected Officials: Survey

Small business owners say they are more likely to contact their elected officials about health care costs than about any other policy issue.

The National Small Business Association (NSBA) has reported that finding in its NSBA 2018 Politics of Small Business Survey.

The NSBA asked, “If you have contacted your elected officials on a small business issue, what were the issues?” The business owners that took the survey could check all of the issues that applied.

Here were the business owners’ top issues:

• 27%: Regulatory reform
• 29%: Small business contracting
• 37%: Tax reform
• 38%: Local issues
• 40%: Health care costs

The NSBA has based those figures on results from an online survey of small business owners that was conducted in May and June. The NSBA received responses from 1,421 business owners.

About 38% of the business owners who participated were Republicans, and 28% were Democrats. Thirty percent said they were independent or unaffiliated.

“Small-business owners’ political positions are wildly diverse, and they are not beholden to any one political party,” Todd McCracken, NSBA president, said in a statement about the survey results. “Unfortunately, one thing they all agree on, regardless of party affiliation, is that policymakers don’t really understand small business.”

Just 31% of the survey participants said they thought their elected officials knew who they were.

If elected officials are ignoring the small business owners, that might be a mistake: Small business owners vote.

A whopping 96% of the survey participants said they were registered to vote, with 77% saying they regularly vote in local elections, and 93% saying they vote in national contests.

— Read Only 5% of Our Off-Season Buyers Can Afford Major Medical: Web Broker, on ThinkAdvisor.

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