To truly get a representative survey, a larger section of the population shpuld be used. I agree that health care is frantically needed, and this is the voice of bitter experience through a fall last year. The security one feels with availability of health care is paramount in selecting ones employer, but having been raised with National Health care system it is a two edged sword. There is no easy answer, but the USA must begin moving toward a nationalized system.

Every good researcher knows it's not the number of respondents, but how diverse a population the research represents that's really important. And Gallup knows its stuff. As someone who has lived abroad and also toured much of the world, I can only describe America's healthcare as overpriced, wretchedly inefficient, and extremely unfair. It's way long past time to rid ourselves of special interest pandering administrations and images of socialized medicine.

While Mr. Istook may disagree with the results of this survey, I believe that the Gallup Poll Group has a good understanding of statistical sampling requirements for this purpose. As a CPA dealing with employer owned small businesses as a regular part of my practice, I can say that the results of this survey are representative of their feelings. Most are daunted by the cost of obtaining health care for themselves and their employees. Most also do not have a cost effective avenue to obtaining health insurance for their employees.

It's hard to put great credibility in an effort to analyze attitudes of America's small businesses based on a sample of 603. Picking and contacting a representative sample is exceedingly difficult in any case, and even more so when dealing with a subgroup with as much internal variance as exists among small businesses.