Two anecdotes, and something else
- When George W. Bush bought his tax breaks for businesses by sending $200 “stimulus checks” to American taxpayers, incidentally reestablishing the deficit Clinton’s administration had wiped out, I heard a BBC interview of an American businessperson. They asked her if the “stimulus” would have any effect and she said it would be negligible. Then they asked her what the government could do to help a small business like hers, and she said the most meaningful thing would be if she could get any help with the small fortune she spent to provide health insurance for her employees.
- When I worked in a tech corporation, a lot of the people I got to know had “side hustles” profiting from their skills and creativity. Some of these had a lot of potential as full time businesses, but whenever I asked someone about this, the response I got was that they couldn’t risk losing health insurance for themselves and their families.
- Not really an anecdote, but an observation from having worked in both companies with large populations of young, under-40 people, and other companies with a smaller, older 40 to 70) population. Risk adjustment takes into account the size of the risk pool and the age of the population. The smaller, older company paid a great deal more per employee than the large company. Paying for insurance is just one squeeze faced by Mom & Pop businesses facing competition from giant chains, whether that’s retail, small manufacturing, or a service industry.
Conclusion: if this nation truly wants to support small business and innovation, removing the healthcare risk by providing universal healthcare may be the single best tool we have.
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