The Montana Small Business Alliance is a coalition of Montana small business owners who believe small businesses presently are getting shortchanged and deserve to have a stronger voice on health care and other important issues.

Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and play a key role in our communities. Unfortunately, our health care system and our public policies aren’t giving small businesses a fair shake. We want to change that.

Read our reports below:

Critical Condition: Montana Small Businesses Talk Health Care Reform Hear from Montana small business owners explaining, in their own words, what they need from health care reform.  In this report, 17 small business owners from across the state discuss why health care reform is so critical to themselves, their employees, and their businesses.

Taking the Pulse of Main Street Small Businesses, Health Insurance, and Priorities for ReformSmall business owners are considered a key voice in the public dialogue over health care reform. But where do small business owners stand on the issue? “Taking the Pulse of Main Street ” provides results from a survey of 1,200 small business owners about their experiences with health insurance and their perspectives on different reform proposals. The results show small business owners want systemic reform, are willing to contribute to achieve it, and want a quality public insurance option. Graphs available for download: » Support for different approaches to health care reform » Willingness to contribute for quality health coverage » MT small business owners’ priorities in health insurance

Since launching in September of 2008, more than 300 businesses across the state have joined our coalition. If you are a small business owner, please add your endorsement to the principles below.

Montana Small Business Alliance Health Care Principles
(crafted with the input of hundreds of independent MT businesses)

As small business owners, we believe this system is fundamentally broken and we must fix it to ensure our future prosperity. We call upon our state and federal governments to enact reforms yielding a health care system that fulfills these principles:

Reliable: No one should lose coverage due to accidents, sickness, changing jobs or starting a new business.

Equitable: Everyone should have good health coverage, regardless of whether we run a small business or a Fortune 500 company.

Proactive: The system must be efficient by encouraging prevention and wellness, not just reacting to illness and accidents.

Predictable: We need affordable, stable and predictable costs to be able to plan our payroll expenses and budgets.

Real Choices: We should be able to choose a high quality public health plan, open even to people insurance corporations deem “high risk,” as an alternative to plans marketed by insurance companies.

Accountable: The health care system should be transparent and accountable to the public. It should be designed to prioritize our health, not maximize insurance industry profits.

If you share these values, please contact the Montana Small Business Alliance at amanda@mainstreetalliance.org or call 406-437-3311 to find out how you can get involved.