"I have owned businesses for decades and never in my life have Iexperienced so much anger and frustration as with Obamacare." Sosaid Dr. Joseph P. Sergio, president of Sergio Corporation (SouthBend, Indiana), in June 3 testimony in front of the CongressionalJoint Economic Committee's hearing "Examining the EmploymentEffects of the Affordable Care Act."

Sergio Corporation owns and operates two small businesses. FirstResponse is a disaster restoration company with clients across thenation. Polar Clean America cleans industrial facilities with anenvironmentally-friendly dry ice process.

"Our health insurance in 2015 will be our largest single vendor,even higher than construction material costs, and we are aconstruction company," said Dr. Sergio. "How do we adjust for a 24percent increase in costs in one year, which is largely due to theincrease in the number of ACA requirements and regulations that hadto be incorporated into the plan?"

According to Dr. Sergio, complying with Obamacare "isnecessitating a strategy in many small businesses to control costsby not rising above 50 employees. Therefore, the effort is towardfewer full-time employees, fewer 30-hour/week employees, moresubcontract work, and more use of temporary services. This is nothow to build quality and consistency in a workforce and createoneness of purpose."

He continued: "Instead of focusing on clients' needs, we worryabout health care regulation. Instead of seeing opportunities tomove forward and create jobs, we have to reassess to see whether itwill push us over the employer mandate thresholds."

To be successful in a small business, according to Dr. Sergio,you must be able to accurately identify, forecast and control yourexpenses in order to create profits - profits that you can in turnreinvest in growing your business. "From the beginning, it has beenclear that no one seemed to even read, much less understand, whatwas in the ACA," he said. "Small businesses, their advisors, taxprofessionals, and even insurance companies are frustrated with thecomplications it has caused and all the unintended costs for thegreat amount of administrative time to evaluate options and processthe invasive application for care. Job creators have beenstruggling to understand it and interpret it. Therefore, we cannotaccurately predict or manage the costs associated with bringing inmore employees."

Another specific problem: "Our businesses have exhausted manyoptions in dealing with the requirements of the Act," he said. "Wehad to drop a traditional PPO plan for a high-deductibleObamacare-compliant program. As a result, our employees and ourcompany are paying more for an inferior policy."

According to Dr. Sergio, "Common sense and a basic understandingof human nature tell you that you will always get what youincentivize. You get more of what you reward and less of what youpunish. The ACA punishes employment growth. The incentive is to notgrow."

And, "In short, the ACA has made building a small business morestressful and has caused many businesses like ours to pull back andstop growing."

He also noted: "I know of one small business personally thatclosed two of its multiple retail stores, because it was the onlyway that it could keep to under 50 employees."