Someone must have gotten their wires crossed, because I received an invitation to a "Business Summit" on health care and energy, hosted by Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue's PAC. I went, ostensibly because as environmental consultants it's good for us to stay on top of policy proposals (my company's been a bit involved with supporting biomass utilization in Georgia already, and are hoping that we will find a lot of work helping companies make money or cut costs under cap and trade regimes).
But I went. And in an auditorium full of Republicans, I stood up and told Gov. Perdue that some small business support a public option.
It was obvious from the first panel on energy that Perdue had no interest in even an appearance of balance. The main presenter was Karen Harbert, a truly frightening woman who is completely against any kind of greenhouse gas regulation and made a disturbingly effective presentation. It went over especially well with the audience, who was practically muttering amens. The main thrust of the entire discussion was that any effort to control greenhouse gas was bad and evil.
Funniest moment: when a teabagger in the audience stood up and asked the government if the state of Georgia should invoke the tenth amendment were Waxman-Markey to pass, and Perdue had to carefully, tactfully tell him that the idea was kind of insane.
The second panel, though, was even worse. It started off ok. Colin Roskey, an Alston-Bird attorney (and former staff counsel to Chuck Grassley), gave a presentatio about health reform. He did try to be honest about some of the very real problems with our current system, but he also mixed in a derisive slide about how all the uninsured were either illegal aliens, dumb young people who lazy poor people who just hadn't bothered to sign up for Medicaid. He also brought up canards like tort reform as if they were actual solutions.
On the panel, Perdue also had Chuck Adams, president and CEO of Ty Cobb Health Center, Mike Sullivan the CEO of Southeast Sealing, there to represent small business, Rhonda Medows, commissioner of Georgia's Department of Community Health, and Norm Boyd, with AGCO, a large business that self-insures.
The panel members were mostly right-moderate. Mike Sullivan and Chuck Adams gave measured, careful remarks about how health reform was a very big deal and they wanted to see good solutions. The lady from the Department of Community Health was incredibly negative: her main line was that Georgia simply can't afford to offer to expand coverage, and should stop trying to. She also made the ridiculous statement that there was no way the state of Georgia could comply with the new regulations on insurance, and would probably end up having to pay the 8% payroll tax (which I don't believe for a second, and if we have people like this administering our state Medicaid program, I can see why we have such problems with it).
The absolute worst member of the panel was Mike Sullivan. This was his logic (and I am not exaggerating): This plan is Socialism, and since under socialism there's no small business, so I don't like it.
Really. Someone with that level of eloquence and understanding of the issue was put on a panel discussion by our esteemed Governor (who, I should add, showed up wearing a business suit and cowboy boots, not understanding, I guess, that we are NOT in Texas, and that it makes him look like a total tool).
I am so tired of hearing small businessmen make this ridiculous arguments against their own self-interest.
I work in the business that my father started in 1995. We currently employ about 165 people. I hesitate to call myself a small business owner, because I own only the tiniest percent of the business (about 1%). My father owns 40% of the business, though, and I work there, so I am very close to it. I have worked at all levels of the business: I was the receptionist the summer between high school and college, I did office work and technical writing after my undergraduate, I came back to run the company library after graduate school. Maybe the business isn't mine, but my heart is definitely there. I love what I do, helping to solve extremely complex environmental problems with some real world-class thinkers.
We have a problem with insurance. We pay a lot, and all that we can offer is high-deductible/high co-pay insurance. It makes it difficult for the company to attract top-quality talent, which is what the business of consulting is built around. It makes it prohibitively expensive to hire entry level, just-out-college people who won't have high billing rates.
And I worry. I worry that if we had an employee who had a child diagnosed with leukemia, and we were hit with one of the insurance companies' wonderful surcharges. Would be put in the horrific position of either firing that person or going out of business? What if it was one of the partners, who we can't just let go?
At the forum, Rosky and Medows got into a bit of a discussion about 'crowd-out'. The theory that about 88 million employees, were a public option to pass, would be moved from employer-provided care to a public option. And that would be a bad thing, since people would be forced onto government care.
And I just had to respond to that; both to stand up for the fact that not all small business people are troglodytes like Mike Sullivan, and for the flaw in their logic. I am paraphrasing what I said below. (Note: I am sure I was not quite so eloquent, as it was a very hostile room and my heart was about to beat out of my chest, but I am trying to reproduce what I know I said as faithfully as possible).
I wanted to stand up and just represent the different kind of small business person. I work in the business my father started 12 years ago. We work hard, and we've grown. We currently employ about 165 people.
Currently, our health insurance poses one of the single biggest threats to our existence as a business. We have a older workforce, and unfortunately have had a significant number of employees get sick. We are unable to provide benefits anything like our large competitors, and it makes it difficult to attract the quality of talent we need. We do not have the 'luxury' of just not providing insurance, as some business do. It is not possible to attract highly educated professionals if you are not offering health insurance. If we were to have an employee have a child diagnosed with leukemia, we would have to close our doors.
When you were talking about 'crowd out', earlier. You set up a false comparison. You said the choice was between 88 million people getting covered by employers, or those people being covered by a government plan. This is a false choice. For how many people is the choice instead one of being covered under a government plan, or being unemployed because insurance costs have driven their company out of business.
Frankly, I don't see any other solutions offered that would effectively address the problems. I see people throwing out popular, nice-seeming things like tort reform. But when you look at the numbers, there's no there there: you cannot find sufficient cost savings in tort reform to address our current problems.
That's all I wanted to say. The small business community is hurting under our current system, and we need solutions that actual address the problems, and don't just sound nice.
So, that's what I said. I got several degrees more Southern than I normally am while giving this little speech (always happens when I am a bit intimidated), which might be why I didn't get booed.) I was the last question, and Sonny looked a tad flustered (Mr. Small Business asshole just looked mad). All he said was 'I think we can tell from what we have said that we are going to have to work hard to find good solutions.'
So, that's my story, for what it's worth. I urge everyone in this community to take advantage of forums like this whenever possible. The more hostile the room, the more minds that need changing may be reached. I hope that I put maybe a chink or two in someone's opposition to health care.