Local Merchant on Health Care Reform

This OpEd was originally published on September 10, 2009 as “Merchant says, ‘Hear our plea’” and is reproduced with permission from The Davis Enterprise.

I own a small business in downtown Davis – an independent  bookstore, The Avid Reader. In 1987, I and my business partner at the time bought an existing bookstore with a loan from my parents. The funds I put into my recent remodel came from my personal savings.

Over the past 22 years, I have hired many local or UC Davis young people to work in the store. For many, it is their first job with significant responsibility. From my store they’ve moved on to graduate school, teaching and a myriad other job destinations and futures.

My inventory manager is another local resident who grew up here and returned after graduate school and some years of bookstore work elsewhere. He’s been with the store nearly 20 years.

Like most small businesses, after paying vendors, I pay half of what is left in staff costs. For all my employees, of course, I pay wages, payroll taxes and workers’ compensation. For my manager, I pay full health insurance.

The other half of the money remaining goes for everything else – rent, advertising, utilities, phone, supplies, maintenance and other insurance. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I realize 4 percent profit before taxes. That’s typical of a small business return even in the best of times.

Last year, that 4 percent paid my federal and state taxes. Some years, I have no profit, even losses. Other years, the small profit I have stays in the store to improve the business or to cushion the following year’s expenses. It’s been a decade since there’ve been profits to distribute.

Every day I monitor my store’s bank balance and calculate the timing of bills to pay to ensure the store is not overdrawn. And every day, I think of how I can trim expenses in a store with a flat income to offer more wages and benefits to my staff.

My story is the story of small business in America. We have a dream to have a business. When we open our businesses, we provide new jobs and economic growth. We pay our employees what we can pay. We support other businesses and our community.

In this moment in our country’s history, many of us ask our elected officials to work to reduce our staff benefit costs through considered, fiscally responsible legislation. We want them to pursue waste and fraud in the health care system, curtail unfair insurance awards, allow the purchase of health insurance across state lines, seek ways to lower costs of expensive tests and treatments, and focus on how to make health services available specifically for  those Americans who do not qualify for existing programs and cannot afford current health insurance.

We want our leaders to make it possible for me and other small businesses to  keep and grow our businesses, and for our employees to have jobs and access to affordable health care. No less than the health of our economy and our nation are at stake.