Why health benefits are personal to this NYC business owner

Patrick Hall, owner Élan Flowers and his wife, Christine (not Chase for Business customers).

When a sudden health crisis hit Patrick Hall’s family, it didn’t just threaten his personal finances — it reshaped his professional journey, thrusting him into small business ownership. His experience, chronicled on "The Unshakeables℠" podcast, underscores a broader challenge many small businesses grapple with today: navigating affordable and effective health care solutions.

From personal crisis to small business success

Patrick never set out to run a business. His path to entrepreneurship began not with a business plan but with a health emergency. In 2013, while celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary, Patrick’s wife, Christine, fell ill and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Though Patrick was employed at the time and the company generously covered the full premium for individual employees, adding family coverage was financially out of reach.

Like many in the creative economy, Christine held multiple part-time roles, which qualified the family for a coinsurance policy through the Freelancers Insurance Program. But even with insurance, the coverage was limited — 70% after a high deductible. The couple had to make an impossible choice: prioritize care or manage costs. They chose care. The surgery saved Christine’s life, but the remaining 30% of the bills from major surgery and chemo at a different hospital amounted to more than Patrick earned in an entire year and left the family facing medical bankruptcy.

That experience was a turning point. They sold the only asset they had — their apartment in Harlem — to pay off the bills, and with what was left, Patrick followed his father’s advice to buy an existing business that already had cash flow. He chose Élan Flowers, a long-standing Manhattan flower shop. While motivated initially by financial survival, Patrick soon realized that business ownership also gave him agency — especially over decisions that impacted his family’s health care.

But managing the cost and complexity of health care didn’t end there. As a small business owner, Patrick quickly learned that providing benefits to his employees came with new challenges. During the COVID shutdown, he personally covered the health premiums for furloughed staff, an effort rooted in his own experience of being technically insured but still financially exposed. Later, to reduce costs and improve access, Patrick moved the business to a professional employer organization (PEO) model but found himself navigating a whole new set of limitations around provider access (otherwise known as a "network").

Patrick’s story is one of creative problem-solving and constant recalibration. His experiences reflect a broader truth for small business owners: providing health care is deeply personal — and often incredibly complex.

A widespread struggle, not a one-off story

Patrick’s challenges as a small business owner navigating health care aren’t isolated — they’re part of a much larger, systemic issue. In the wake of rising premiums and administrative complexity, many owners of small and mid-sized businesses face difficult trade-offs between offering benefits and investing in other areas of their businesses.

This tension is especially acute in today’s labor market. According to the most recent Business Leader Outlook Survey from Chase Insights, 41% of SMBs that don’t plan to hire cite health care costs as a primary reason.2025-blo-survey Meanwhile, 35% say they’re considering increasing benefits such as health care to attract or retain employees, underscoring the double bind of cost and competitiveness that owners like Patrick face.see-note-1

These insights come to life on "The Unshakeables" podcast, where Dan Mendelson, CEO of Morgan Health (the JPMorgan Chase division focused on improving employer-sponsored health care), emphasizes that many small business owners don’t have the bandwidth or expertise to navigate health care complexity alone. During the episode, he highlights that small businesses often don’t know where to turn and spend a significant amount of their time researching and vetting health care options. This underscores the need for the health care industry to step up and present information in a transparent, factual way.

"Small business owners are passionate about their businesses ... but health care is not their expertise," Dan says. He adds that offering health care benefits often presents a significant challenge for small business owners, and he advocates for more affordable, flexible insurance alternatives such as individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements (ICHRAs).

Patrick’s story isn’t an exception. It’s a lens into what many small business owners experience every day. His willingness to keep asking hard questions and exploring new options reflects the resilience that many small business leaders must summon just to keep their teams healthy and insured.

Innovative solutions: Spotlight on Venteur

Stories like Patrick’s are what motivate Stacy Edgar, CEO of Venteur. Launched in 2021, Venteur is a leading ICHRA administrator.

ICHRAs allow employers to offer their workers a tax-free allowance to purchase health insurance on the individual marketplace. Instead of insurance companies setting premiums that will likely increase each year, ICHRAs let businesses control costs by setting coverage amounts, while giving employees the freedom to choose from a wide range of options on the exchange.

ICHRAs remain a relatively new concept, first available to the employer-sponsored health care market in 2020. So far, small businesses have been the largest cohort of ICHRA adopters. Venteur has seen growth in its number of small business customers due to its ability to meet the needs of a diverse, geographically dispersed employee base, reduce the burden of plan administration and make costs more predictable. And for employees, Venteur’s model leverages an AI-powered platform to support the health plan selection process.

For business owners like Patrick, who know firsthand the risks of going without care, innovative solutions like these offer a chance to reshape what sustainable, employee-centered coverage can look like.

Building a better path forward for small business health care

Patrick’s journey from personal adversity to small business ownership reveals how deeply health care challenges are woven into the fabric of entrepreneurship.

On the podcast, Dan Mendelson underscores how cost volatility continues to pressure small businesses. "This year, costs are going to go up by more than 10% for most small businesses,"wsj-8-4-24 he says. "Next year, probably the same thing’s going to happen." For Patrick and other owners, that means constantly reevaluating how to offer coverage in ways that are sustainable for the business — and meaningful to employees.

Against the backdrop of rising costs and an increasingly dynamic labor market, Morgan Health is committed to sharing stories like Patrick’s and understanding the unique ways that small and mid-sized businesses are burdened by health care. It’s also working alongside Chase for Business to educate business owners on the solutions available to them today, including ICHRA plans. The recent Morgan Health report, "Navigating Health Care: Five Takeaways for Small and Mid-Sized Businesses," offers a deep dive into their needs and how they’re making business trade-offs to keep health coverage intact.

To hear more from Patrick himself, listen to his episode on "The Unshakeables" podcast. To learn more about Élan Flowers, visit www.elanflowers.com.