Small Business and Self-Employed

Remember who fought for workers and helped establish the "Middle Class"!

 ENOUGH -- Why I believe so strongly in the Affordable Care Act.

You can skip my personal story and go directly to:

Five Ways the Affordable Care Act Helps America’s Small Businesses  

Published by the US Small Business Administration    Originally by Ari Matusiak, special assistant to the President & director of private sector engagement and first appeared at Whitehouse.gov on August 14, 2013.

http://www.sba.gov/community/blogs/five-ways-affordable-care-act-helps-america%E2%80%99s-small-businesses

Down and Personal
Several years ago I owned a real estate brokerage, I was a self-employed Realtor with a family and several small children.  Looking out for the family health was a problem with the types of illness falling on young families.
Shopping around for health insurance we found, expensive programs with lots of limits.  At the time my office employed several sales people and a couple staff employees.  None of us had any kind of health insurance, a couple of salesman had wife's that worked and their jobs provided for them, but the majority of us had nothing.
At the same time I was serving in the Oregon Legislature and one of the fellows that was a lobbyist happened to live in my legislative district.  He was the legislative frontline for Kaiser a major HMO on the West Coast.

{Health maintenance organization (HMO)   is an organization that provides or arranges managed care for health insurance, self-funded health care benefit plans.}
Henry J. Kaiser came to Portland building ships, he was an American industrialist who became known as the father of modern American shipbuilding. He established the Kaiser Shipyard which built Liberty ships during World War II, after which he formed Kaiser Aluminum and Kaiser Steel. Kaiser organized Kaiser Permanente health care for his workers and their families. 

At different times he would contact me and visit me at my real estate office, after all that is what lobbyist do, only he happened to be a voter in my district also. 
During one of my conversations with him, I mentioned the need for some kind of health insurance for my family and a couple of the sales staff members.  He indicated he would have someone from the group sales department contact me about health insurance coverage.

We found we could form a small group plan, giving us full health coverage, major benefits and reasonable cost with as few as ten people.  We became the first real estate office in Portland to have health insurance for our employees.  As an inducement for the the staff to join I paid a small portion of the cost and acted as the "banker" for the group.

At last a health plan for my family and something for the office staff at the same time. Not only did Kaiser have several health clinics around Portland but a major hospital too.  It worked out well for our family and the group for several years before I sold the brokerage and moved to Arizona.  Four kids, four horses and year around weather we could enjoy family living outdoors.  Believe me, Oregon is beautiful green with lakes and the Pacific Ocean,  but after 41 years of rain, snow and cold it was time to enjoy some sunshine.  Our new home in Gilbert, Arizona had air conditioning and getting four active growing kids to shut the doors was a major task in itself.  The kitchen door and the sliding family room doors opened to the patio and the swimming pool, it was a constant battle keeping the doors closed the heat and the flies out.  Remember, four horses pastured out back also.

Only when you face doctor office visits, childhood health needs without any type of health insurance do you fully appreciate the need for some type of health care coverage.  My only last word to any seniors out there on the Republican Tea Party Picket Lines with Medicare, you got yours, now halt the protests and encourage everyone to join OBAMACARE come October 1.   It's called sharing!