The kink in the current system, which represents the largest single sector of the U.S. economy and $2.4 trillion in spending, is that health-care services are sought and provided regardless of whether someone has insurance, said Salt Lake small-business owner Keith Trickett, who has so far avoided having to reduce his 10-employee staff due to health-care costs.

Trickett, who is originally from Great Britain and has run high-tech companies in nine different countries and lived under nine different health-care systems, said the U.S. model restricts a company's capacity to operate and grow, and in the process, pulls down the productivity of employees.

"It's always on our minds," he said. "People criticize other health-care systems around the world, but this is the one that is twice as expensive as any other and is the only country on earth where if you get sick enough, you will lose your house. And for some reason, we're fine with that."

e-mail: jthalman@desnews.com

Small Business Majority survey

80 percent of Utah small businesses want a health-insurance pool in which individuals choose their coverage, not just sign up for the group plan offered at work.

79 percent want to eliminate the pre-existing condition rules; 74 percent see them as a huge barrier to starting a business.

69 percent prefer having the choice of a private or public health-insurance plan, a notion that has been proposed by federal reformers but generally ridiculed by many Utah policy makers and insurers as "socialized medicine"; only 20 percent of small businesses want a private-only solution.

67 percent say it's important for individuals, employers, insurers, the government and health-care providers to share the responsibility for making health care more affordable.

The results are based on a random survey of 300 small-business owners in Utah between June 2 and June 9. The entire survey, which has a 5.7 percent margin of error, is available at www.smallbusinessmajority.org.