Obama Seeks Health Reform Support From Small Businesses - Kaiser Health News

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Roll Call: "The White House is aggressively courting the small-business community, believing that some on GOP-friendly Main Street can be enlisted in the fight for health care reform and that assistance to mom-and-pop shops is vital to chipping away at the unemployment rate. ... White House officials were on the phone to the [U.S. Chamber of Commerce] and the GOP-leaning National Federation of Independent Business on Friday asking them to provide a group of small-business owners for Obama to talk with at the White House on Thursday."

Obama will use the time to talk health care reform and the economy, sources said. The hope is that small businesses will see that reform will bring better rates and improve their options for offering insurance to their employees, which might get them to support reforms. The NFIB remains wary, however, on the reform legislation in Congress (Koffler, 10/28).

In the meantime, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Tuesday in a conference call that the health care crisis is felt more than anywhere else in rural parts of America, where many lack access and health insurance, The Salt Lake Tribune reports.
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