I try to stray away from political discourse, as a rule, on this blog. After all, it is my company’s website and the discussion doesn’t really have a place here. However, after reading The Wall Street Journal Article, ‘Sick and Getting Sicker’, I feel it may be appropriate…or at least germane…to add my two cents to the discussion (for what it’s worth).
So much is made about the health care issue and the cost to businesses, but not much is added to the discussion that has a bearing on real life. It ends up being about tax dollars and spending and ‘BIG’ government and ’small’ government. It’s never about who’s affected by action or inaction. As a small business owner, insurance is a big deal. Health insurance is an even bigger deal.
It’s not all ponies and rainbows
I’m constantly worried about when the other shoe will drop, as I’m sure many business owners are. Will my new client pay? Will I get that new contract? What happens if we make a mistake? Insurance is supposed to help us all feel a little better about doing business. My business insurance helps. My Errors and Omissions policy makes me feel better too, but it’s not nearly as important, psychologically, as health insurance.
Thankfully, I’m insured by wife’s excellent policy, but I can’t offer insurance to my employees, so I’ve taken to hiring freelancers and contractors to fill the gap, but the talent pool is shallow and it’s not easy to ramp up for a big project when you staff a project this way. This ham strings my efforts to get and keep amazing people (no matter how amazing I may be…which my Mom tells me I am…so I must be), as it does for the people in the article. More importantly, it wears down the fiber of an organization. It’s yet another hurdle to creating and building a business. A hurdle that seems unnecessary when you look at the way European countries care for their population.
So much lip service is given to the culture of small business in this country. It’s apparently essential to making the economy rebound. It apparently employs the most people in the US. It apparently speaks about the culture of this country and our rugged individuality. If it is apparently all these things, then why are small business left hanging in the wind. Why is the discourse disproportionally skewed toward big business? I guess it’s hard to have a seat at the debate when small businesses are made up of so many disparate voices. I don’t think it’s an excuse.
The cost of any progressive action will be high, but the cost of inaction will be much, much higher. Insure us all and keep our country moving forward.
