Obama links healthcare reform with small business growth

In the face of bleak employment forecasts, President Barack Obama on Saturday stressed that healthcare insurance reform would boost small businesses across the country.

In his weekly radio address, Obama pointed to the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs among small businesses and pressed for new initiatives, including healthcare reform, to spur small-business growth.

“Many entrepreneurs can’t get financing to start a small business in the first place. And many more are discouraged from even trying because of the crushing costs of healthcare – costs that have forced too many small businesses to cut benefits, shed jobs, or shut their doors for good,” Obama said.

Health insurance reform would allow small businesses to buy insurance for their employees through exchanges, “which may offer better coverage at lower costs” and provide tax credits to those businesses, Obama said.

Obama also called on banks “to stand by creditworthy small businesses” and make the loans those businesses may need to start up, grow their operations or create new jobs. 

“It’s time for those banks to fulfill their responsibility to help ensure a wider recovery, a more secure system, and more broadly shared prosperity,” Obama said. "And we’re going to take every appropriate step to encourage them to meet those responsibilities. Our economy as a whole can’t move ahead if small businesses and the middle class continue to fall behind.”

The White House on Wednesday moved to inject capital into small businesses. Obama proposed legislation to raise the ceiling on certain Small Business Administration (SBA) loans and asked Congress to approve steps to provide lower-cost capital to community banks. Both moves would use existing funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

“The goal here is to get credit where it’s needed most – to businesses that support families, sustain communities, and create the jobs that power our economy,” Obama said in the radio address.

Obama stressed that the economic recovery act was “designed to help small businesses expand and create jobs.”

“It’s provided $5 billion worth of tax relief, as well as temporarily reducing or eliminating fees on SBA loans and guaranteeing some of these loans up to 90 percent, which has supported nearly $13 billion in new lending to more than 33,000 businesses,” Obama said.