Brooklyn business owners balk at Obamacare
From Dyker Heights to Park Slope, owners of small businesses all over Brooklyn are saying that they’re shelling out so much money for health insurance these days, it’s making them sick.
And they’re blaming the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare.
In Dyker Heights, the owners of Frank J. Silvestri Insurance, Inc., a firm that has been on 13th Avenue for 50 years, told U.S. Rep. Dan Donovan that reforms enacted by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have caused their family’s insurance premiums to skyrocket to $25,000 per year, consuming resources that would otherwise go to growing their business and paying their employees.
In Park Slope, the owners of Franny’s, a popular pizzeria, have added a three percent surcharge to food orders to help cover the cost of providing health insurance to their employees.