The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) is basking in the media attention as being one of the plaintiffs against the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court starts hearing the case today. (Yesterday the New York Times did an excellent short summary of what will happen during each of the three days.)
Today I received a press release from the NFIB listing their individual plaintiff’s in this case. These include 2 small business owners, an unemployed worker and a retired person. Since the NFIB purports to be the nation’s leading small-business association, I thought it would be interesting to learn more about the 2 small-business owners they secured for their lawsuit.
One is David Klemencic, who owns Ellenboro Floors in Ellenboro, West Virginia. I called his business number and got to talk to his mother. According to her, Ellenboro Floors doesn’t have any employees.
I also called Dana Grimes, who owns Premier Renovations in Greenwich, New York, but only got his answering machine. His business does not have a website but I found a Better Business Bureau report that shows that the company is a sole proprietorship that does roofing and light carpentry. There was no mention of how many employees Mr. Grimes has if any.
The NFIB claims to have hundreds of thousands of members yet these are the only business-owner plaintiffs they could find for the lawsuit???
Maybe the NFIB, as I have said before, isn’t really representing the interests of small businesses. Certainly they aren’t representing the interests of Mike Roach.
Mike Roach, owner of Paloma Clothing in Portland, Ore, and a 36-year member of the NFIB, said he welcomes healthcare reform to help shoulder the costs of healthcare. “The costs have been crushing us. If nothing was done about healthcare costs, we’d either have to cut benefits or lay off some of our employees — neither of which we want to do. The fact of the matter is the new law has already started helping us. We’ll likely get more than $7,000 back this year from the small business tax credits.” CNBC (March 26, 2012)
I bet the NFIB never asked Mike Roach to join the lawsuit.