Healthcare

HEALTHCARE

I don’t understand why any small business owner - any business management, for that matter - is opposed to government-funded, universal healthcare, like the Canadians, Japanese, and Europeans have. I really believe this would be the single greatest gift the government can give to small businesses, short of eliminating all taxes completely. I even believe government-funded, universal healthcare would not only lift an onerous burden off the shoulders of small business, but equally as important, it would create an explosion of growth for all companies nationwide.

The opponents of universal healthcare have been effective in scaring voters by describing the huge tax increases that would follow if there was such a program. Well, as every business owner knows, we’re already paying a pretty hefty tax for providing healthcare, and I suspect a government-funded program would drastically reduce the expenses every owner is already paying.

Healthcare is one of the biggest expenses for any business and it is crippling American companies just as we’re all trying to compete globally. We’ve all heard that Starbucks spends more on health insurance than on coffee beans and General Motors spends more on health insurance than on metal - and we can all imagine how much healthier these companies would be, and how much more competitive they would be, if they could use that money for new product R&D, building new facilities, and expanding globally.

What opponents to government-funded, universal healthcare don’t see are the millions of small businesses struggling to pay their health insurance premiums. I do not know of a single small business, where the owner hasn’t had to make a choice between paying a health insurance premium or taking a salary, and I guarantee that virtually every business has had to borrow money at one time or another to pay it’s health insurance premiums.

In my particular case, the cost of healthcare for my thirteen employees and their twelve dependents is almost $40,000 per year. I desperately need to hire another person in my marketing department to help my company grow, but I can’t because the money I would be using for salary is going to health insurance premiums.

And, considering we’re spending $40,000 a year, the best we can offer employees is a minimum policy. Not only have I lost good candidates over the years because our healthcare benefits aren’t as good as larger corporations, but for the first time, a long term employee is leaving - actually taking a lower salary - because he needs better benefits for his family. I have another employee - someone in management - who has to leave early two days a week, because she works as a bartender in the evenings in order to pay for the additional healthcare coverage her family requires.

There’s no great benefit to my company for spending almost $40,000 per year on health insurance. In fact, under a government-funded plan, I would probably be spending a lot less than I am now, even with a personal tax increase. Maybe, I’d be able to take home a check every week, for a change.

Let me mention one last thing for the opponents of government-funded, universal healthcare to think about. Because the burden of healthcare costs (in addition to payroll taxes and worker’s comp) is so high, my small business, like many others, has outsourced work overseas. I bet if you asked workers if they’d rather pay higher taxes or be unemployed, most would rather be working.

I’m not certain at what point in our country’s history health insurance became the responsibility of the employer and not of the government. Whichever political party engineered that really tricked the people and did our competitors overseas a big favor.

***

Jack Bernstein is the author of seven books on business and president of, The Translation Station, a foreign language translation company. Send comments to him at: Jack@TheTranslationStation.com Copyright 2008, Jack Bernstein