The discussion about health care and small business is really bugging me. First my bias, declared now so I don’t end up like all those others who just recite talking points supporting their “team” in politics: I’m firmly behind President Obama on health care.
(An aside: politics ought not to be a team sport. Every politician ought to decide on each issue based on what’s best for the country. But that’s impossibly utopian, I know.)
What’s bugging me, aside from all the obvious politically motivated hooray-for-our-side blathering from both sides, is the people claiming one health-care policy is good or bad for job creation or small business. Everybody, it seems, wants to speak for small business, but what they say is just claiming that whatever it is their team is saying is supposedly good or bad for small business. They’re using talking points. They’re playing for their team.
Here’s a simple truth: Businesses start or don’t start regardless of the government’s health-care policies. People start businesses because they want to, because they believe it’s good for them or for some similar motive. They don’t decide to do it–or not to do it–because of health care.
And more truth: Health-care costs don’t kill companies. People are not hired or fired because of higher or lower health-care costs. Companies that work, companies that succeed, will manage the health-care costs. Companies that fail are just looking for something to blame.
That’s my opinion.
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry.
