Printing, binding and packing is how employees at Zebra Print Solutions spend their day.

MORRISVILLE, N.C. -- President Bush says he has a plan to make health insurance more accessible for uninsured Americans but would it work for North Carolinians?

Experts say it could help individuals who buy their own insurance. But the proposal might not make health care more affordable for small businesses.

Printing, binding and packing is how employees at Zebra Print Solutions spend their day. In all, the small business employs about 20 people.

Company owner Charlotte Dileonardo offers health insurance benefits to all of them.

“Over the years, the cost has just skyrocketed,” Dileonardo said.

That makes it increasingly difficult for small businesses to provide healthcare coverage. Dileonardo says her company pays for half of her employees’ health insurance coverage at a cost of hundreds of dollars per employee per month.

“I network quite a deal, quite a bit, with other small business owners, and they're all screaming they have the same problem and it's not just in North Carolina,” she continued.

But would President Bush's idea of offering tax credits to individuals who buy their own health insurance help the small business owner? Fiscal policy analyst Joe Coletti of the John Locke Foundation says yes.

“This equalizes, again, that playing field,” Coletti explained. “If you're not getting insurance from your company because your company can't afford it, then you still have the option to buy insurance on your own and you still get the same tax deduction that you had at your large employer."

Dileonardo isn't so sure. If some employees opt to buy their own insurance but a small group of them want to stay on the company policy, the small business owner would end up paying even more to offer benefits that smaller group.

“It's no longer a benefit,” she added. “It's become a requirement and when it becomes a requirement it has to be affordable to perform."

She says she's keeping an open mind about ways to make it more affordable for small business.

According to the think tank the North Carolina Institute of Medicine, 55 percent of all uninsured workers in our state work for businesses with less than 25 employees. The group says one sixth of our state's population went without health benefits in 2004.