Insurance burden – For many small Montana businesses, health benefits too expensive

Jonathan and Alison Whiting, owners of Mexitana Tortillas, hold about the closest thing to health insurance that their small business can afford n a first aid kit that hangs on their office wall. With the high cost of health insurance, the Whitings have made the choice to do without.

In the manufacturing room of Mexitana Tortillas on Main Street in this Bitterroot Valley town, a machine squeezes and rolls dough into small balls on a conveyor belt. A few feet away, an employee keeps the dough moving through the process, which results in cooked tortillas that cool by the rack-full.

From the front office, the sound of the work is simple and repetitive: soft clunks, the hum of the conveyors and a warm whirr from the ovens.

To Jonathan Whiting, who co-owns the business with his wife, Alison, it’s the sound of a successful, growing business. But it’s a fragile success, he said, because he can’t afford to provide health insurance to his five employees or even himself and his wife.

By ROBERT STRUCKMAN

of the Missoulian

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/articles/2005/06/14/business/biz01.txt