By JACK FARIS

America loves big. We believe bigger is better.

Just take a look at the big businesses of our nation. For example, the ones that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average. These 30 companies are the icons of free enterprise-American Express, DuPont, IBM and McDonalds, huge enterprises that generate millions of jobs and stand as towers of economic hope and strength for our nation.

We tend to forget that these giants of industry and finance haven’t always been big. Each and every one began as a dream, an idea, or a spark of imagination in the mind of an entrepreneur. In the beginning, they were all small businesses.

So you would think that common sense would tell us that if we wanted to have more entrepreneurs like Walt Disney or Sam Walton out there creating little companies that one day become pillars of free enterprise, we should encourage them. That’s not the case when it comes to a vital employee benefit.

It is not enough for small-business owners to be creative and to run their firms efficiently and effectively. It is absolutely critical that they be able to hire and retain good employees to keep the companies growing and improving. Health insurance is an important benefit enjoyed by employees of the big companies, but not available in many small ones.

It comes down to two things: access and cost. Some 43 million Americans have no health insurance. Absolutely none. Sixty percent of those can be found in the ranks of our nation’s small-business entrepreneurs, their employees and dependents. Small-business owners either can’t find or can’t afford health insurance.

Now those companies that have made it to the top can get and afford health insurance for their employees. The same benefit is enjoyed by big labor unions. How do they do it? Because they’re big and they have what’s known as purchasing clout.

There is a way to solve this problem. It’s called Association Health Plans-or AHPs-which would allow small firms to band together to buy insurance in large pools. The theory is simple: AHPs would increase economies of scale and lower administrative costs.

But the fear of competition frightens the big insurance companies because it would break their stranglehold on the health insurance market and bring affordable health care to millions who earn their livelihoods in Main Street small businesses.

President Bush announced his support of AHPs on Feb. 11. Congress could pass the legislation this year. But to make it happen, small-business owners will have to make big noise-so big that the Congress will pay more attention to them than all those lobbyists the big insurance companies have hired to protect their even bigger monopoly.

Not all small businesses want to grow up to be like Boeing or Procter & Gamble, but it should be their decision, not a condition forced on them by mega-insurance bullies who deny affordable health coverage to millions who need it.

JACK FARIS is president of the National Federation of Independent Business, the nation’s largest small-business advocacy group. See www.nfib.com.