For many small-business owners, health care reform boils down to one issue: Whom do you trust least—insurance companies or the federal government?

Members of the Main Street Alliance contend a government-run insurance option is needed to force private insurers to be more competitive.

“They need to have the fear of God put into them,” said Kelly Conklin, co-owner of Foley-Waite Associates, an architectural woodworking company in Bloomfield, New Jersey, that pays nearly $5,000 a month for insurance to cover 10 employees.

Most Americans, he said, “have absolutely no trust” in the health-insurance industry.

That’s especially true for small businesses, which face much higher premiums for health insurance than large employers do, said David Borris, owner of Hell’s Kitchen Catering in Northbrook, Illinois.

“We are the market that has been preyed upon,” Borris said.

Insurance costs won’t come down without a public plan, he said.

But Michael Fredrich, who owns a small manufacturing company in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, is more concerned about becoming a “slave to the federal government.”

The health care reform bills pending in Congress are “nothing more than a power grab,” he said, another example of the government “intruding in every aspect of our business.”

Fredrich is president of MCM Composites, which makes custom molds for industrial applications.

The company currently offers its 55 employees a high-deductible health-insurance plan that is paired with a health savings account.