The ratcheting up of the minimum wage, the rise in fuel costs and the continuing growth in the national debt were all on the minds of about 15 small business owners at a meeting in Mankato Tuesday.

The skyrocketing price of employee health benefits, however, topped the list for the business owners and entrepreneurs who accepted Congressman Tim Walz’s invitation to educate him about issues they’re facing.

“We’re seeing double-digit increases every single year,” said John Kocina, vice president of Tow Distributing Corp., a Mankato beer distributor. “How do we deal with that?”

With Congress aiming to make sure every American child has health care coverage, Kocina wondered if his business would be facing rising taxes to pay for that — along with dealing with the enormous increases in insurance premiums for the company’s 35 employees.

Minnesota State University business Professor Shane Bowyer said many university graduates have great ideas for new products but are short of capital and intimidated by the prospect of trying to cover health care costs as a start-up business owner.

“Then they take that idea that they had and let it go,” Bowyer said.

Walz wasn’t surprised that health care costs were a top concern.

“It dominates these discussions,” said the first-term Democrat, who held a similar small-business roundtable discussion in Owatonna Tuesday morning and had an economic summit in Austin last month.

Walz said he senses a deep pessimism that elected officials have the will and the courage to tackle the looming health care crisis. But he said the nation eventually will have no choice because American companies won’t be able to compete internationally if they continue to be saddled with higher and higher worker benefit costs compared to competitors in other nations.

“We absolutely have to deal with this because your productivity is getting killed by this,” he said.

Walz said he supports universal health care coverage in America, although not necessarily a single-payer system. While he offered no specifics on how to accomplish that, he said there will need to be more pressure from Americans on candidates and elected officials — particularly from business owners.

The Mayo Clinic is planning to issue a report on the nation’s health care system late this year, according to Walz. It will be provided first to all presidential candidates in an attempt to force the issue to be a part of the 2008 campaign.

“There’s going to be a window of opportunity that’s going to open up in January of 2009,” Walz said of the honeymoon period traditionally available to a new president.

He also said it’s time to recognize the falsity of the long-held belief that America has the best system of health care in the world. While he said some American facilities may well provide the best care anywhere, the overall system is clearly broken because of cost and access issues. He noted recent reports that America now ranks 42nd in life expectancy among a list of nations and territories worldwide.

“Other countries are doing it for less and as effectively,” he said.