Failure to Communicate
The Obama administration, meanwhile, failed to communicate the benefits of the law to small businesses.
Otto’s Chicago advocacy group, along with Chicago’s Women’s Development Center, surveyed small business owners in five Midwestern states in the week after the 2016 presidential election and found a stew of misinformation. Respondents complained about price hikes that predated the law’s implementation, for instance, or about the medical underwriting that Obamacare actually ended.
“There’s just a huge lack of knowledge out there,” said Emilia DiMenco, president of the Women’s Business Development Center, who blamed the problems on a lopsided outreach to individuals.
DiMenco said she doesn’t believe either Congress or President Donald Trump should or can return small business health insurance to the pre-Obamacare days: “It just needs to be rebranded and improved, like an iPhone or any other first-generation product.”
In Las Vegas, Nelsen the garage door installer is hoping that’s the way it works out, and that the ACA gets fixed, not scrapped: “But as a small business owner, they’ve already given me that icky, gut-wrenching feeling again.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.