The Forum

HEALTH CARE REFORM CREATES SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH

by Mark Challis

The Health Care Reform law will greatly affect the ability of many families to start a small business. Our existing health care system prevents many potential entrepreneurs from starting their own business. People who have health insurance provided by employers usually do not have to prove insurability for themselves or family members. Starting their own business would make them have to pay outrageously high COBRA coverage for eighteen months, or prove the entire family is healthy enough not to have pre-existing conditions excluded for coverage in an individual family plan of health insurance.

Let’s say the father has worked as a plumber for a large company for several years and wants to strike out on his own. He has a child with Juvenile Diabetes that requires insulin injections and frequent glucose testing. Obama’s plan would require insurance companies to insure the child and the rest of the family. The present system would make it impossible for the father to start his business, because the insurance company can exclude the child from coverage. The present system makes it impossible for the father to leave his employer; due to the family’s need for health insurance. This results in indentured service to the employer, who in many cases is very wealthy and does not want an employee it trained going into competition against the company.

Big business understands that keeping the insurance system the way it is will keep present employees anchored to the company. This reduces training costs for the big business owner and reduces the chances of new competition in the marketplace. It also allows the employer an edge in hiring, when competing with smaller competitors, who may not have enough employees to get guaranteed issue health insurance. The smaller employer cannot be competitive in recruiting as many qualified employees because of this imbalance in insurance coverage.

Republicans understand that the big business folks fund their political campaigns. They are using a false argument of “socialism” to protect their wealthy benefactors from competition in the marketplace. President Obama’s plan allows the little guy a fighting chance to start a business and watch it grow. It will help create new jobs and businesses. The one thing Big Business hates is competition. Republicans blocking this law are aiding and abetting big business in their quest to limit the competitors the President’s plan could create.

ü A payroll tax cut for all working families, providing the average working family with a $1,000 tax cut in 2011.

ü Expansion of small business loan programs to help small businesses access credit and create jobs.

ü Initiatives to help veterans transition to post-service careers.

ü Tax incentives for businesses that hire unemployed veterans.

The President also made the bold decision to provide emergency loans to the auto industry which resulted in:

ü Saving more than 1.4 million American jobs.

ü Preventing personal income losses over two years of more than $96 billion.

ü Helping make the Big Three (Chrysler, GM, and Ford) all profitable for the first time in years.

     The President’s aggressive actions to put Americans back to work and restore security for the middle-class are working. This is an incredible accomplishment considering that the President had to begin with the largest U.S. debt ever, a failing economy, collapsing banks, bankrupt businesses and a record number of mortgages in default.

     The bottom line: Obama’s economic strategies are putting more people to work and that bodes well for his re-election in 2012.

The Victorian economist, architect, and art critic, John Ruskin, made the point that it is no more the purpose of a businessman to obtain a profit than the purpose of priest is to obtain his stipend. Of course priests have to live too, and a business must make a profit to continue and thrive. The question is: Where do we place profit on a pyramid of highest and best uses of businesses?

I would submit that profit should be the base of the pyramid, a necessary and foundational requirement, but not the highest purpose of any business. The highest purpose of any business is to produce a product or service and to do it in such a way as to increase the wealth and quality of life of the entire society. In order to achieve that goal a business would need to produce a service that is needed and that improves the quality of life, or a good that is truly good; a quality product at a reasonable price. It would be necessary in producing this good or service to be sure that the employees of the business make a living wage and that the work of their hands or minds leads to a productive life and a comfortable old age. These should be the highest goals of any business.

Placing profit at the top of the pyramid causes, and has caused, much mischief. The search for getting the absolute most profit has caused employers to bust unions, import undocumented workers, export jobs overseas, create worthless financial instruments, hurt the environment, produce items that lack quality, drive out small businesses, create financial hardship for the workers, and corrupt our government and society. This is not an exhaustive list.

This is not an argument against profit; not even large profits. It is an argument that society needs to place the need for businesses to make a profit in the larger context of corporate good citizenship. In the time that Mark Twain called the “Gilded Age” he stated that nothing is so respectable as money. In our current gilded age that remains, sadly, to be the case.

To correct the misplaced role of profit in our lives and our economy we must first work on our own attitudes. We must honor the honest businessman, farmer, or laborer. We need to quit honoring those persons and businesses that put profit above citizenship, money above honor, and personal privilege above the common good.

We must return to first principles. We must put people first. We must make it axiomatic that there is no real profit from pollution, no benefit from exploitation, and no human good from greed.

In light of this, the business of government can still be business, but our encouragement needs to be for those businesses that seek to be partners in the creation of a prosperous and healthy society. I know that there are many such businesses out there, and we need to reserve our encouragement, and resources for their honor and support.

Karl Schilling