Small Business, the Minimum Wage and Health Care
A bill passes the U. S. House:
The U. S. Chamber of Commerce and other large groups are opposed to this, but this does nothing to hurt my small business clients. If people really wanted to help my small business clients, they'd move to. . .. wait for it. .. a single payer health care system that got private insurers out of basic care.
Health care premiums are really a drag on small business growth and job creation. But right now, all the insurance companies have an incentive to do is to weed out the people most likely to need care, all the while raising rates. Then, we all end up paying more because the uninsured get the most expensive care imaginable: emergency care, which we all pay for anyway, but now they're sicker than they would have been if we had dumped everyone into one big risk pool, creating a kind of Medicare for everyone. We already have a de facto universal health care system, it's just an insanely inefficient one. Insurance rates o down when risk is pooled over ever widening groups, but we've been narrowing our groups by weeding out the sick and pushing the resultant higher expense onto the insured. We get so little bang for our health care buck it's ridiculous, and it hurts our economy, and small businesses get hurt the most.
But the U. S. Chamber will never take this position, because on the national level, it represents big business, not small business, no matter what its rhetoric may be.
Rise in minimum wage OK'd by House
Utah representatives are divided along party lines; Senate plans tax breaks for businesses
By Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune Article Last Updated: 01/11/2007 12:54:35 AM MST
WASHINGTON - The U.S. House voted Wednesday to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, although Utah's Republican members voted against the bill.
"It's an issue that makes for some nice political rhetoric, but it actually hurts the people that we're trying to help," said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah. "This bill will increase unemployment among the least skilled and lowest paid workers, including high school and college-age kids, and will increase costs for small businesses and consumers."
But Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, who voted for the measure, said he doubts the doomsday scenarios painted by opponents of the wage increase. The House vote calls for a $2.10 increase in three steps over two years.
"I really don't think it's going to eliminate jobs. My gosh, the $5.15 wage was set years ago. It's long overdue," he said.
The U. S. Chamber of Commerce and other large groups are opposed to this, but this does nothing to hurt my small business clients. If people really wanted to help my small business clients, they'd move to. . .. wait for it. .. a single payer health care system that got private insurers out of basic care.
Health care premiums are really a drag on small business growth and job creation. But right now, all the insurance companies have an incentive to do is to weed out the people most likely to need care, all the while raising rates. Then, we all end up paying more because the uninsured get the most expensive care imaginable: emergency care, which we all pay for anyway, but now they're sicker than they would have been if we had dumped everyone into one big risk pool, creating a kind of Medicare for everyone. We already have a de facto universal health care system, it's just an insanely inefficient one. Insurance rates o down when risk is pooled over ever widening groups, but we've been narrowing our groups by weeding out the sick and pushing the resultant higher expense onto the insured. We get so little bang for our health care buck it's ridiculous, and it hurts our economy, and small businesses get hurt the most.
But the U. S. Chamber will never take this position, because on the national level, it represents big business, not small business, no matter what its rhetoric may be.
posted by AJ | 7:39 AM
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