My name is Johnathan Hou.  I am President of Axiom Corporation which is a small business.  We perform engineering design, civil engineering, structural design services for roadway/highway facilities, you know, laboratory material testing facility.  And we are a small business.  Actually, we are a microbusiness.  Our annual gross is less than two million.  With the health care of so high premium, we cannot afford the health care for our employees.  We have about seven people in part-time and full-time together.

In the early days, a few years ago, we had about 15 people.  And we could, because of the financial situation, be able to afford health care for those people.  Then, because of increase of premium, we could no longer afford them.  So right now, we’re trying to help our employees as much as we can by providing a subsidy.  And mostly I think that turns out to be, in today’s environment, that looks like more efficient, more productive, in a sense.  Because when they get sick, or their family members get sick, they go see a doctor, and because it’s such a small illness or their cost of doctor care becomes part of deductible, they can get a recover.  And then our health care premium turning becomes waste to the whole system. 

So right now, we basically, you know, we’re not providing health care.  We’re just providing subsidy.  And by looking at the Governor’s program, we support that because it provides us some really good strong points.  One of them is the health awareness and guaranty coverage, and also tax break for employee and the employer.  This way we can provide, if that works out, from carried through, then we can again provide the insurance coverage to our employees.