Mike,
-you wrote
3. It has to be corporate America. The big firms like the concept of being the "big daddy" without whom there is no health care. It is very similar to owing your soul to the company store in the 19th century. Though it increases their costs, directly, it lowers their cost, indirectly, by allowing them to pay lower salaries than they would without this big stick of health care they are carrying around.
Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas, a leader of conservative and moderate "Blue Dog" Democrats is also the leading recipient of contributions from that health insurance organization - at least according to what I saw on the news. So, yes, item #1 is a big one.
But I also heard someone on CNBC mention that the high cost and non-availability(due to medical preconditions) of health insurance is stifling entrepreneurial innovation by discouraging workers at big companies from leaving their safe corporate positions to start new innovative companies. I hadn't thought of that before but that makes perfect sense. Had I known insurance rates were going to do what they've done back in 1995 when I made my decision to leave SLB, I would have thought twice about leaving. Maybe three times...
Carrying that line of reasoning a bit further, the insurance situation also discourages people from joining start-up companies. Maybe not so much the youngest, but the older ones with valuable experience would have to hesitate signing on knowing the odds of a start-up surviving.
If the above is correct, then we are facing a double whammy as we really do need to be constantly innovating given the loss of our manufacturing base. But it also gives the big companies a lot of motivation to fight this bill as they don't want to have their top people leaving. So, yes, I agree, item #3 is also a big factor.
craig |
