A Small Business Send-off for Senator Wyden (AUDIO)

The senator's town hall meetings are today at 12:30 p.m. in Medford and on Friday in Enterprise and LaGrande.

Demonstrators with a message for Ron Wyden about healthcare Photo courtesy: kboo.fm

(MEDFORD, Ore. ONS) - A coalition of Oregon small business owners says its members are unhappy with what they see as Sen. Ron Wyden's "on the fence" position about health care reform.

Today Wyden is in Medford, where he will get the message from members of the Oregon Small Business Council that they cannot afford "business as usual" when it comes to health care.

Wyden is dancing around the issue of a public insurance option instead of supporting it, says Leilani Hawkins, co-owner of Howiee's Restaurant, Medford, and a member of the Oregon Small Business Council.

"To me, Sen. Wyden is talking too much like a politician and not really committing. We're saying, 'Can we just get another option so that the average Joe American will be able to have insurance?'"

The group points out that 45 U.S. senators support a public insurance option. Wyden's alternative, the "Healthy Americans Act," would not do enough to control costs, they add. It would require people to buy their own private insurance and help them find it, and it would still be partly funded by employers.

The senator's town hall meetings are today at 12:30 p.m. in Medford and on Friday in Enterprise and LaGrande.

This year, Hawkins says, she and her husband had to let their janitor go, and they also had to give their remaining employees a choice: health insurance or a pay raise.

"We still needed to be able to afford health care for our five full-time employees; everyone else works part-time. My husband and I have become the janitors. And my other employees? Even if they were working full-time, they can't afford to have that much taken out of their paycheck and still feed their children."

The town hall meeting in Medford is at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School; on Friday meetings are scheduled in Enterprise at 1:00 p.m. in the high school cafeteria and in LaGrande at 5:00 p.m at the middle school commons area.

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Special thanks to Oregon News Service
Produced and reported by Chris Thomas

Click the play button below for the audio report: