Vicki Pozzebon
More than half of the independently owned enterprises in the U.S. (52 percent) are small businesses with fewer than 500 employees. In New Mexico, small businesses make up 71 percent of the economic activity. As the executive director of the Santa Fe Alliance, an association that represents locally owned independent businesses in New Mexico, I can testify that reform which gives business owners a fair shake at offering health care to their employees is critical.
Small businesses are the backbone of New Mexico’s economy. They serve as crucibles of innovation, employ talented, hard-working people and provide a significant number of jobs in the state; however, they also face unique challenges that can prevent them from competing with bigger businesses and achieving maximum success.
Now these businesses – and their employees – will benefit from the tax credit program that is a key element of the new, fairer health care reform package.
This year, more than 88.9 percent of New Mexico small businesses (24,800) with fewer than 25 employees will be eligible for tax credits to help pay the cost of necessary employee health insurance coverage, according to a new report issued by the consumer health organization Families USA and the small business advocacy group Small Business Majority. A separate report, “A Helping Hand for Small Businesses: Health Insurance Tax Credits,” notes that 5,500 New Mexico small businesses will qualify for the maximum tax credit of 35 percent.
These are businesses that employ 10 or fewer workers who earn an average wage of less than $25,000, and traditionally have the most difficult time affording insurance.
Efficient production systems, excellent customer relations and high-quality products and services are all things that depend upon people. Attracting and keeping good employees, and keeping them healthy, positively impacts productivity, which in turn creates healthy businesses and directly impacts our economy. Barbara Webber, executive director of Health Action New Mexico, said that in 2008 employers with fewer than 10 workers paid on average nearly $350 more for each employee’s health insurance than firms with 50 or more workers, and that fewer than half of these smallest businesses offered coverage to their employees.
Healthy, fair competition is a cornerstone of our American economic system, but a business is only as successful as the people who own it, who work there and who spend money there. The new tax credit program, which is part of the new, fairer health care reform package, extends the opportunity to offer employee health care to small businesses that previously couldn’t afford it. New Mexico small businesses now have access to a fairer playing field and a healthier future.
Pozzebon is the executive director of the Santa Fe Alliance, a nonprofit organization working toward building a local living economy through community, local ownership and advocacy.