Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

By Laura Woodhead-Talk Radio News Service

Any health care reform legislation must include provisions to help small businesses, create more jobs and stimulate the economy, Senate Democrats said Wednesday.

"More than half of all Americans without health insurance are small business owners, their employees and their dependents," said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) during a press conference. "We are trying to craft a reform that will make health coverage more stable, more secure and more affordable."

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, said that the high costs of health care has been limiting the potential for U.S businesses to create more jobs.

"We are relying on these 27 million businesses to create more jobs, not less," Landrieu said. "This health care expense is sitting on our Business Committee like a very wet, heavy heavy blanket suffocating their ability to grow and expand."

Under the current drafts of health care reform legislation, small business risks would be pooled with other small businesses in order to stabilize the system through nationwide or statewide exchanges.

"Insurance companies would have to post their premiums side by side so that [employers] can comparison shop," Durbin said. "[Small businesses] will have access to every private insurance company in [their] area."

Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) said it was critical that small businesses were included in health care reform in order to stimulate the economy.

"[Small businesses] are the engines of our economy," Lincoln stated. "We need to make sure that what we are doing is going to be helping them."

Durbin admitted that forming the health care bill was a delicate process and that there would be "flash points" along the way, but urged his party's colleagues to stay united in order to pass reform.

"[While] what is being produced by the bi-partisan group from the Finance Committee is not the bill that I would write, I have urged all my colleagues to stick with this process and realize that the first vote is not the last vote," Durbin said. "The Republican [minority] want to filibuster us in to failure. We can't let that happen."