Health care has returned front and center to the political debate. Whether driven by presidential candidates or by the bipartisan efforts of our legislators in Washington, DC, the issue has re-emerged with an even bigger “help wanted” sign in the windows of small-business owners across California.

You may have heard next week is “Cover the Uninsured Week,” which advocates finding solutions to insure the nearly 45 million uninsured Americans. Although designating a week for hand-wringing over the nation’s biggest domestic crisis is welcomed, California’s small-business owners will still be struggling to find affordable health care long after this week passes. While California’s policymakers are busying themselves trying to alleviate some of the pain -- often going in directions that will only exacerbate it -- a bigger national solution is clearly needed.

Health care reform for small businesses is a unique issue. Just 43 percent of small-business-owning members of the National Federation of Independent Business can afford to provide health insurance. And, overwhelmingly, small businesses feel that crunch as they try to compete and hire the most talented workers in a highly competitive marketplace.

Small-business owners struggle with annual, double-digit insurance premium increases that make providing and maintaining coverage progressively difficult. It has been cited that insurance premiums for small groups or single coverage have increased by more than 82 percent since 2000, a jaw-dropping statistic. This is completely unsustainable for the long haul.

How do we cope? and, more importantly, how do we fix it?

Last month, a small but important victory occurred in Washington for small businesses. It happened quietly, with little fanfare and even fewer front-page news stories, but the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a bipartisan amendment to the budget bill that lays the financial groundwork for market-based, small-business pooling to be allowed in future health insurance proposals. While this may sounds like a lot of DC “mumbo jumbo,” this amendment helps pave the way for health-insurance reform that our nation’s small businesses so badly need and will help reduce costs, expand access, and improve the quality of health care.

• Building on this initial step, we must continue to re-iterate what California’s small-business owners want in a federal solution:
• Market-based reforms to expand competition and choice in the market to purchase private health insurance
• Ability to create pooling arrangements across state lines
• Tax incentives to help with the purchase of health insurance
• Federal relief from state health insurance mandate

We are pleased by the on-going work of our federal legislators to continue discussion on this issue and look for common ground. Their leadership, and our discussions with them and likeminded lawmakers in both parties, gives us confidence that a comprehensive approach to providing affordable insurance options to our nation’s small businesses and the uninsured can be reached.

On behalf of the tens of thousands of small businesses in California, here is our message: Help is wanted. Help is needed. There is a real opportunity to enact small-business health care reform, but the window is rapidly closing. The time to act is now.

Michael Shaw is California legislative director for the National Federation of Independent Business