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Small Business Owner Asks President Obama About Gov. Health Care

The stories about the legislation in front of Congress concerning the Health Insurance Reform have filled newspapers, television, websites and feed readers across America.  Many of these stories contain the same information as previous stories, but some are addressing the question on many business owners minds, “How will this effect MY small business?”

At this point, no one knows. The intricacies of this legislation are being changed and tweaked as needed and the details are ambiguous at best.  But, this in no way alleviates the need to know how this will effect businesses and one business owner got the opportunity to seek answers.

Above is a shot of business owner Patty Brigulio and President Obama sharing words over the question she was able to ask at one of the many open forum town hall style meetings that President Obama is holding across the United States to talk about health insurance reform.

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Obama Meets the Businesswoman: The Story Behind the Photo

It turns out The Agenda is not alone in thinking President Obama may have a public relations problem with small business. Patty Briguglio, who can be seen above, and on the front page of today’s Times, exchanging a wagging finger with the President, agrees and she should know: She runs a public relations firm, MMI Associates, in Raleigh, N.C. She’s also a small-business owner.

Ms. Briguglio pays for much of her 19 employees’ health insurance, though she doesn’t offer a group plan. Because her staff is so young, it is cheaper to simply provide an allowance for them to purchase individual policies. The President was in town to talk up health care, and earlier at the town hall event, he called on Ms. Briguglio. She asked, “What current long-term social program created and run by the government should we look to as a model of success and one that we as taxpayers should be confident that a new government-run health care system would be better than the current system in place?”

The President suggested both Medicare and V.A. hospitals, which, he said, “have very high satisfaction rates.” Further, he added, “Medicare costs have gone up more slowly than private sector health care costs.” The answer didn’t fully satisfy Ms. Briguglio. “I’ve never associated any government program with ‘cost-effective’ or ‘efficient,’” she said in an interview today. “I don’t believe that the government will be a better steward of the money that I set aside for health care for my employees than I will be.”

This was only one of several questions she hoped to ask the President. Of even greater concern, she says, is the tax hit she will take. And that’s the story behind the photo. At that moment, as the President made his exit, Ms. Briguglio pressed him on the issue and got a response: “He said to me, ‘The tax credits would more than offset any tax increases,’ ” she recounted. “And I said, ‘I’m holding you to that.’ And he laughed and said, ‘O.K.’ And I said, ‘No, I mean it — I expect you to keep your word on this.’”

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Read the full article by Robb Mandelbaum at NYTimes.com

Tags: business, health care, legislature, small business, taxes