Rick Poore spent $61,000 in health insurance premiums last year for the employees of his Lincoln screen print and embroidery business.

Over the past 10 years, the premiums Poore helps pay for his employees' health insurance have gone up close to 120 percent, he said.

In early November, Poore joined a group of eight small business owners on a trip to Washington to try to persuade representatives and senators to support health care reform legislation.

"It'll put money back in the pockets of employers and employees," said Poore, who owns Design Wear.

He said he believes health care reform would put as much as $12,000 back in his pocket each year and up to $400 back in each of his employees' pockets.

He said soaring insurance premiums have prevented him from providing insurance to all of his 33 employees and from investing in his business to remain competitive.

Poore's trip to Washington was paid for by the Main Street Alliance, a small business advocacy group that supports health care reform legislation now being considered by Congress.

Hannah Ledford, who serves as the group's Nebraska director, said she interviewed 118 small business owners in early October about their thoughts on health care reform.

"The overwhelming consensus was that something needs to change," she said.

Of those she interviewed:

• 60 percent supported a health care reform approach with a public option (a government health insurance program), 25 percent supported an approach based solely on private insurance plans and 15 percent were undecided.
• 59 percent said they believe employers who can afford to should share in the responsibility of contributing toward employees' health coverage, 24 percent opposed that idea and 18 percent were undecided.
• 21 percent of business owners said they offer health insurance, while 79 percent said they do not.

"The vast majority of businesses that I talked to currently could not afford to provide insurance to their employees but wanted to," Ledford said.

Barb Barnhill, owner of The Baja Salon in Havelock, doesn't provide insurance to the hair dressers who rent chairs in her salon. But she would like to someday.

She said she supports health reform legislation.

Why? That's easy, she said.

In November 2008, her husband Dennis was diagnosed with Type II diabetes, which has since worsened to Type I diabetes.

His prescriptions cost about $300 a month.

They switched insurance plans to fit their medical costs into their budget, reducing their premiums from $750 to $400 a month on an insurance plan with a high -- $10,000 -- deductible.

They switched plans June 4. Four days later, their 11-year-old son suffered seizures, went to the hospital by ambulance and was diagnosed with Type I diabetes.

The family ran up $10,000 in medical expenses that night alone.

Now they're trying to pay off the $10,000 and keep up with the premiums, Barb Barnhill said.

Two weeks ago, Barnhill participated in a conference call with the White House about health care reform.

She said she supports the health insurance pool offered in the legislation that would allow employers and employees to participate with others bidding on health insurance in order to get better rates.

She also supports the public option, but not in its current form. She said she would like to see restrictions on allowing people to use the public option if they are already covered by good insurance plans.

"If change is not made, I cannot see small businesses existing," she said. "If small businesses cannot exist, America will die as we know it."

Reach Kevin Abourezk at 473-7225 or kabourezk@journalstar.com.