Small Business Healthcare, what a mess. Of course you probably know that already. Did you know that less than 50% of Microbusinesses (those with 10 employees or less) provide healthcare for their employees or themselves and the number is shrinking every year.

What is a small business owner to do? Our featured guest on this episode, Dawn Rivers Baker, Publisher of Microenterprisejournal.com. The best resource for small business to use for information and insight into this problem with no solution.

Here’s a sampling from the show:

• This mess is not new.Washington politicians have been discussing small business healthcare for over 10 years, two or three bills have been proposed but no change has brought about. Healthcare is one big political football that just gets tossed around with no one catching it and getting something done.

• What is a small business owner to do?The first thing is to get accurate information about the current problem and what proposals are being made to address it.

• Sometimes it seems like we are focusing on the wrong thing.The insurance premium cost, not the actual cost of the care being provided. Because we never see that cost. How could we compare providers even if we were allowed to?

Recorded: August 1, 2006
Duration: 55:11 minutes

About Dawn Rivers Baker

Dawn Rivers Baker is the President and CEO of Wahmpreneur Publishing, Inc., and the editor and publisher of The MicroEnterprise Journal. She is also the founder and board chairman of The Microbusiness Research Instutite, a non-profit non-partisan research organization whose mission is to collect and publicize data on microbusinesses in the United States and their impact on the larger U.S. economy.

Her professional memberships include the Online News Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, and Women Impacting Public Policy. In 2003, the Syracuse New York District of the U.S. Small Business Administration named Ms. Baker as Small Business Journalist of the Year, and she has been selected for annual inclusion in Marquis’ Who’s Who in America® and Who’s Who of American Women®.

Ms. Baker is also often sought by fellow journalists for her experitse on microbusinesses. She has been quoted in articles in the Gotham Gazette, the Chicago Tribune Magazine, Home Office Computing, CBS Marketwatch and Entrepreneur’s Be Your Own Boss magazine.

Ms. Baker currently lives in the Catskill Mountains in New York State with her husband of more than 20 years and their four children. In her not-quite-spare time, she serves as a Member of the Committee on Special Education for her local school district.

For more information on Dawn Rivers Baker, please visit The MicroEnterprise Journal.

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