Too often in Washington, political battles overshadow people's reality.

One evening, a father received a call that his college-aged son was being rushed to the hospital. His son had totaled his car and needed an emergency back surgery to repair a fracture to his lower spine. After he learned his son was stable and would walk again, his concerns quickly turned to the question, "Will our health insurance cover this?"

You see, he's a self-employed, small-business owner without a sufficient number of full-time employees to qualify for a large-group health plan.

Before Obamacare, his family had maintained individual health insurance for more than 10 years with modest annual increases. But Obamacare, in its efforts to funnel people into heavily regulated policies, made that impossible. Like many small-business owners, this self-employed family has watched their monthly premiums go from $350 to $941 per month. Their once reasonable annual deductible of $1,500 inflated to $7,500.

Sadly, his family is part of the trend. Obamacare put self-employed small-business owners and their employees between a rock and a hard place. While the plans on the exchanges are renewable, they're outrageously expensive and consist of very narrow provider networks. The cheaper alternative is purchasing a short-term limited duration plan.

The tradeoff is, under Obamacare, there's no guarantee your short-term plan will renew.

Read the full article by Whitney Jones about healthcare coverage for business owners from The Heritage Foundation