What’s it like to be a small businessman these days? “Very scary,” says one Springfield franchisee.

“Last year, I was co-owner of 22 Subway stores,” says Mark Burris of Springfield. Now he has seven. He says he sold most of his fast-food sandwich empire to bring his full-time equivalency under 50.

“So I can know for sure what my costs are going to be. I did not know what that cost was going to be with more than 50. I believe that number should be 100, and it will be in 2016.”

Burris joined other small business leaders and lawmakers to promote a bill that implements Obamacare in Illinois in a way, supporters say, that would not hurt Burris and those like him. They say the governing board of the Affordable Care Act-mandated insurance exchange would have no more than one member from the insurance industry.

The measure is S.B. 34.

(posted 3:36 p.m. 03/19/2013 by Alex Degman/Illinois Radio Network)