Like everyone else, I'm following this year's presidential race, and I'm hearing a lot about the importance of different voting blocs, about how groups of people, divided by age, gender, or some other demographic, are going to tilt the election in favor of one candidate or another.

But there's one bloc of voters that politicians and pundits have overlooked: people who own or work for small businesses.

I believe that's a mistake.

As the National Federation of Independent Business' state director for Virginia, I believe small business is the heart of this state's economy. Small business creates most of the nation's new jobs. And according to a recent poll commissioned by NFIB, small-business owners and employees are a sizeable voting bloc that believes it's being ignored.

NFIB surveyed voters nationwide on Super Tuesday in February to measure the size of the small business voting bloc. The poll found that small-business owners alone account for nearly 11 percent of all registered voters. That's about the same share of the U.S. electorate as union voters. When you include everyone who works for a small business, the size of the bloc grows to about 32 percent -- nearly one voter in three.

SMALL-BUSINESS owners and employees don't have a catchy nickname, like "soccer mom" or "baby boomer," but they are a significant voting bloc to which candidates should be listening.

But that's not happening. Of the small-business owners and employees surveyed by NFIB on Super Tuesday, most agreed that the presidential candidates weren't paying enough attention to issues affecting small businesses. Eighty-one percent of owners said the candidates have not addressed small-business issues as much as they had hoped, compared with 52 percent of employees.

This isn't surprising, especially when it comes to key issues such as health care.

Fifty-two percent of small-business owners nationwide do not offer employee health benefits or insurance purchase subsidies, according to the NFIB Research Foundation.

Nationwide, 46.5 million people -- one in every six Americans under age 65 -- had no health insurance in 2006, according to the latest figures from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Here in Virginia, the uninsured number almost 980,000.

Virginia's legislature tried to address the problem in this year's session. Lawmakers sought ways to help small businesses provide basic health benefits to their employees by splitting the costs between employers, workers, and public or private entities. I thought the idea showed a lot of promise, but it couldn't overcome a tight budget and other obstacles. I hope legislators will continue to polish the plan and bring it up again next session.

Unless something is done, the number of people without health insurance will climb even higher. Health care is expensive, prices are going up, and small employers are facing tough decisions.

SOME OF our members are seeing premiums increase 20 percent or more a year, so they're asking employees to shoulder more of the cost of care in the form of higher deductibles.

Only 47 percent of small businesses offer health benefits to their employees, according to the latest survey by NFIB. According to the study, 1 percent to 2 percent of small businesses drop health benefits every year, while many new businesses simply go without. As a result, some people who need medical care won't get it, and employers will struggle to attract the best workers and grow their businesses.

If the nation is going to address the health care crisis, then small business should be a central part of any solution. Small-business owners and employees should speak up, and candidates should listen.

NFIB is committed to addressing the rising cost of health care by effecting meaningful reform, because when the system is fixed for small business, it will be fixed for America.
Julia Hammond is state director of the National Federation of Independent Business. Contact her at (804) 377-3661 or Julia.Hammond@NFIB.org.