Mark Sanchez: Well, I guess this afternoon here on Wednesday, we'll find out. Typically, when the Fed meets, it's a two-day meeting. And on that second day, typically about midafternoon, they make the announcement about what happens to interest rates. Will we get a rate cut? Will we get a rate increase? We'll find out. And typically, the Fed also with that will kind of do some projections for the U.S. economy and what the Federal Reserve governors see coming ahead. And this is all going against the backdrop of obviously a highly politicized environment and a slowing economy. We're seeing job growth slow. We're seeing hiring slow. We're seeing GDP ease. So, there's a lot of uncertainty out there and some of it's the effect of tariffs and other issues. And again, we'll just have to wait and see. But just throw a little bit of data to you here. You know, one of my colleagues here at Crain's, Dustin Walsh over at Crain's Detroit, did just kind of a piece this week where Michigan could, some folks think is in this jobs recession right now. And we are seeing job growth and hiring slow. There's been an increase in the unemployment rate to about a four year high here in Michigan, it's around 4%. And also, just the whole aspect of not as many companies hiring. We've heard this a lot in the last number of months here from business owners and a lot of folks we talk to is that when you have uncertainty, what do they do? They start to sit on cash. They start to pull back some of those investments and they start thinking about, how are they going to spend capital? Are they growing? Do they need to pull back? Do they need to maybe wait and see a little bit? So, these are some of the situations we're seeing. And Brian Long, the economist there at GVSU his monthly survey results, I was looking at them last week and a lot of those key indexes moved to negative territory here in the last month or so in August. The new orders, production, employment, things like that. He does the survey results and crunches the numbers and puts out an index and they moved negative in August. So, we're going to do a little bit of perhaps turbulent waters, and we'll see how the Fed wants to manage that. We still have inflation a little higher than that 2% that the Fed wants. And again, we're in kind of a waiting mode to see what the decision comes down Wednesday afternoon.
Patrick Center: And then there's artificial intelligence, which is also impacting some of these jobs.
Mark Sanchez: Yeah, that's impacting jobs. Boy, that debate's getting louder and louder each day, isn't it? It's about some folks say, no, this isn't going to affect jobs. Some folks say, oh, well, you can use this to be more productive and replace folks. So that's the whole other separate issue. And we're beginning to see some traction in legislatures, including here in Michigan, to take a look at artificial intelligence and do we regulate it? How do we regulate it? Where's the proper rules and what's its role in the economy and society? So boy, that's a whole separate issue we could go all day on that's beginning to come to fruition here and more people are talking about those very issues that you just raised.
Patrick Center: Speaking of issues, we talk about quite a bit, that is rising health insurance rates. And you've written a piece on how Michigan employers are dropping some of those costly weight-loss drugs to help curb the health insurance increases.
Mark Sanchez: You know I always say health insurance costs are an issue that two types of people should pay attention to. People who pay a payroll or people who are on a payroll because these costs just keep going up, up, up. And I believe that I can remember off the top of my head, the small businesses are looking at an average 11.2% increase for the 2026 policy renewals. And your other fully insured large groups are looking at similar increases. And I've heard stories from brokers here in the last few months about they're delivering just 20%, 30% or more percent rate increases for their clients. Part of the big driver of this are the specialty drugs including the GLP-1 drugs that can treat obesity. They're also treating other conditions, mostly diabetes. And what you've seen in the last couple of years is some of your health insurers saying, wait, these drugs are really costly, we're going to pay for them for diabetes. But if it's simply for weight loss, they're pulling that back. These data points came out of an event last week I attended by Total Control Health Plans. It’s out of Holland. They do an annual survey of clients, I think there were about 65 or so that answered this from across the state. And it really shows that more employers than last year reported that they do not or no longer cover these popular GLP-1 drugs to treat obesity. And more employers, they're also directing their workers to shop around for the lowest cost pharmacy when they need to have a prescription filled. So, this kind of continues that story, how employers are trying to respond to some of these high costs and specialty drugs, GL-1s, are all part of that equation and it's a big part of that equation. You know, when I talked to Mike Hill, who's the founder of Total Control Health Plans, he told me about a nonprofit organization in the Holland area that this year got a 34% increase in their employee health benefit premiums and that drove the cost coverage from $450,000 for that organization to $700,000 here in 2025. And for small business, any or any business, those are crushing numbers that they have to respond to it, and they have to manage that and keep the business operating in the black. And for some small businesses, that type of increase, that's their margin. That's their operating margin, their profitability. So, it's coming for folks who may use these drugs. Be prepared, your insurers are making changes and very soon your employer may make some changes as well if you're strictly looking at using these GLP-1s for weight loss.
Patrick Center: We're talking with Crain's Grand Rapids Business staff writer, Mark Sanchez. We'll stick with the challenges of small business. There's a cohort, I would say, of small business owners here in West Michigan who are asking for the federal procurement process to be reformed.
Mark Sanchez: This is testimony that I paid attention to last week from Sue Schweim Tellier. She's a president and co-owner at JetCo Federal here in Grand Rapids. It's a federal contractor. It does a lot of work, warehousing logistics, with the Department of Defense. And there's this brewing issue, emerging issue, that your federal procurement process has really been favoring your large corporations and large businesses much more the last several years at the expense of small businesses. And Sue in her testimony pointed out that over the last decade and a half, the number of small businesses securing federal contracts has been cut in half in 15 years. And that's even as contract spending by the federal government has increased. So, this was a subcommittee of the U.S. House that's looking at this issue and she was among three small business owners that testified. The hearing was called Leveling the Playing Field and Fostering Opportunities for Small Business Contractors. And basically, there are members of Congress taking a look at this issue and do they need to reform and make some reforms in the federal procurement process to ensure that small businesses are getting their fair share. And Sue Tellier and some of her other small business owners out there, when they testified at this hearing last week, they really talked about it's not just about securing the contract, but small businesses bring a lot of solutions and a lot of innovations to issues. And it kind of broadened the cause here. And if you don't have small businesses submitting, seeking, and winning these contracts in the federal procurement process, the federal government's going to limit some of those solutions it can get from small businesses, and as well as the whole economic effects on small businesses. We hear everybody talk about this; small businesses are the backbone. Well, what these folks, Sue and others that testified last week are saying, then the federal government, Congress, needs to support that and make sure small businesses get their fair share of these federal contracts under the procurement process.
Patrick Center: Crain’s Grand Rapids Business staff writer Mark Sanchez, thank you so much.
Mark Sanchez: Thank you, Patrick.