Small Businesses for Health Care Reform!

Small businesses are the backbone of Rhode Island 's economy and the heart of communities across our state. Small businesses create jobs, deliver essential goods and services, and build local assets.

Despite these contributions, small businesses across Rhode Island are among the hardest hit by the escalating crisis in our nation's health insurance system. As small business owners, we believe this system is fundamentally broken. It's time to take action to fix it - for us, our families, our employees, and the communities we serve.

When it comes to health care, we cannot go it alone. We must stand together. We support a government guarantee of quality, affordable health coverage with good benefits and equitable access to health services for everyone in our nation.

We call on our state and federal governments to enact reforms that promote the health of small businesses and our communities by building a health care system that fulfills these principles:

Everyone In, No One Out: Our health insurance system should cover everyone. No one should be left behind.
Quality Coverage We Can Count On: Our insurance should deliver security by covering what we need, when we need it. No one should lose coverage when they get sick, change jobs or decide to start a new business.
Equitable: Everyone should have good health coverage, regardless of whether we run a small business or a Fortune 500 company.
Affordable : Our health care system needs fair, broad-based financing, and we need stable and predictable costs we can budget for. Everyone should contribute to health care costs based on their ability to pay.

Sustainable: The system must be efficient, focusing on prevention and wellness, including cost controls and incentives for improved health.

Accountable: The health care system should be transparent and accountable to the public. It should be designed to prioritize our health, not maximize industry profits.