Kyle Citrano co-owns three restaurants in Waco. As reported by the Texas Tribune, he says his health insurance costs can jump “in a heartbeat” for reasons that have nothing to do with how well he runs his business.
“You could have your rates jump because your participation is down, someone on your staff could get hurt,” Citrano told the Tribune. “You never know.”
New data from the National Federation of Independent Business puts a number on what Citrano is describing. In a survey released this week, nearly 15% of Texas small business owners named the cost or availability of insurance as their single biggest problem — 14.8%, against a national average of 9.9%.
Texas Runs Five Points Worse Than the Rest of the Country
That gap matters. NFIB’s Texas State Director, Jeff Burdett, called it a “crisis for Main Street” in the report’s release…