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Small Businesses Oppose Affordable Care Act Repeal

Some small business owners in New Jersey are urging Congress not to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Kelly Conklin owns Foley-Waite, a Kenilworth cabinet-making business.

He spends over $10,000 a month for health insurance premiums to cover him and ten employees. If the ACA is repealed, he believes the costs will increase.

“To the point where it’ll simply become untenable for us, and we will have to drop out of the market, and it’ll be every man for himself. And that will mean that I’m going to have to increase my employees’ hourly rate and they’re going to have to go out and try and buy insurance without enough money basically.”

Dan Preston is a filmmaker who owns the Telequest video production company in Princeton. He says repealing the ACA without a comparable replacement would have a chilling effect on small business growth.

“An increasing number of freelancers, sole proprietors, and entrepreneurs are able to take a chance on an adventure. They can follow their passion and dreams because they have affordable options on the individual market and not be stuck as a wage slave for some large employer.”

Jeff Beck owns East Side Mags, a comic book and collectibles store in Montclair. He says the Affordable Care Act allows him to have affordable health care coverage and repealing it would hurt the financial stability of his business.

“They talk an awful lot about taking away the ACA, but I haven’t heard an awful lot about what they plan to do to replace it. So it sounds like they just want to shut it off, kind of like the immigration thing right now.”

Jerome Montes with the Main Street Alliance says more than 46,000 small business owners and entrepreneurs purchased health insurance through the ACA. He believes a repeal would lead to unaffordable premiums, job losses, and budget cuts that would hurt the economy.