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Eve Tahmincioglu

Primary author Eve Tahmincioglu has been covering small business and entrepreneurship for more than a decade. She regularly writes about small business issues for the New York Times and BusinessWeek's SmallBiz magazine. She also writes the Your Career column for MSNBC.com. She is the author of "From the Sandbox to the Corner Office."



A healthcare letter bomb for the candidates

Posted: Friday, March 14, 2008 4:20 AM by Eve Tahmincioglu
Filed Under: , ,

This letter is to inform you that if you don’t do something about the healthcare crisis in this country you might as well be pointing a loaded pistol at the head of small business owners everywhere.

This is my letter to Barack, Hillary and John. It may sounds a bit melodramatic, but it's not to most entrepreneurs.

What if you could send a letter to the person that may end up running the country one day and urge them to help small business owners deal with the growing healthcare crisis?

Would it help?

That’s the tactic a small business advocacy group tried this week and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Image: A man exits after voting in the primary election in Arlington, Virginia
Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images

The letter that the National Federation of Independent Business sent to candidates is a bit different than the one I crafted in the beginning of this blog.

Here’s the NFIB’s approach in the three letters the federation sent to Sens. and presidential candidates Clinton, McCain and Obama:

“The cost of healthcare has reached unmanageable proportions for America’s job creators, threatening the future success and productivity of small businesses across the country. These businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy and are disproportionately struggling with healthcare costs because they do not have the coverage options or the same purchasing power of large employers or corporations. On average, small businesses pay 18 percent more for the same healthcare benefits.”

The letters are part of a new campaign launched this week by NFIB and called “Solutions Start Here”. The group describes this initiative as “an aggressive healthcare campaign that will urge policymakers to deliver real and meaningful healthcare reform for small business.”

Some of the campaign’s planned activities:
•    Hosting Fix-it Forums in seven cities across the country to listen to and learn from the real-life healthcare stories and struggles of small business owners and employees;
•    Inviting NFIB members, presidential candidates and legislators to sign a petition that reinforces the need to drive down healthcare costs while maintaining quality and choice. The petition will be submitted to the 111th Congress and the incoming Administration;
•    Moderating a series of healthcare reform forums that bring health policy leaders and economists together to discuss and debate the most crucial elements of healthcare reform; and
•    Conducting two high-level research projects to better understand how small business responds to different policy suggestions so that we can determine what small business owners specifically want in various legislative proposals.


So what are they asking specifically from the three recipients in the letters they received via courier to their campaign headquarters?

“In the coming months you’ll be hearing more about 'Solutions Start Here' as we go on a tour hosting 'Fix it Forums' with small business owners across the country to learn more about their specific needs and proposed solutions. They will be signing a petition that reinforces the need for action to drive down healthcare costs while maintaining quality and choice, and encourages policymakers to consider those needs when discussing reform. I urge you to join them by signing the enclosed petition that demonstrates your commitment to real solutions for America’s small businesses and their employees.”

I’ll keep you all posted as to who signs and when.

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Comments

I had created a small flowershop and for 5 years, could not afford health insurance. I worked over 48 hours a week. I was able to sell and started a home based business and still have no health insurance. I am very careful with the money I spend. For the past year I have not had TV because it broke when I moved to another state. I am living on my savings. I am 50 years old and I am wondering if it would not be best for me to move back to europe where I was born because being without health insurance is really scary. To europeans, universal health insurance is a right. We may pay more taxes, but it comes back to us with free education, healthcare, good maintenance of all infrastructures, public transportations and other things. Americans have been brainwashed to believe that universal health insurance is a communist idea so they would not ask for it, when in fact it is part of a true democracy. Europe has healthy citizens because of preventive medecine which is key to maintain healthy citizens. Americans spent much more money on health then we do in europe. It is costing them way more because so many wait the last minute to get treatment. France has the best health care system  among all rich countries, america is ranked 37th. It is a shame and an outrage that a country as rich as america is just like a 3rd world country and has no safety net for so many working people.

elisabeth schneider bend Oregon (Sent Friday, March 14, 2008 12:21 PM)

That would be because universal healthcare IS a communist/socialist idea (correction to socialist there).  Europeans are healthier primarily because of their lifestyles (and more power to them in this respect!), not because of healthcare - by nature medicine is reactive, not proactive.  Many Americans bring their health problems on themselves by not taking care of their bodies and eating the s*it that passes for food these days, just like most American financial problems are self-inflicted.  It's funny how my fiance and I have been blessed with wonderful health over the last couple of years, which conveniently coincides with our decision to cook for ourselves and stop eating out.  Power to personal responsibility and realizing that, with very few exceptions, life is what you make of it- socialism, or "government by the lowest common denominator", ain't the answer.

Briman, KC (Sent Friday, March 14, 2008 7:29 PM)

As a healthcare provider with knowledge of both European & American systems, I can say that "Briman, KC"'s comments do not indicate an accurate understanding of the European systems. Healthcare in this country is an embarrassment, and is an incredible drain on our economic machine. To strangle our businesses (both small & large) with the decisions & responsibilities to pay for healthcare is a TREMENDOUS burden. It is a testament to the amazing abilities of American businesses to succeed in a global market with this huge drain on their budgets. A universal system would both keep our citizens healthier and our companies stronger.

Marcus, StL (Sent Saturday, March 15, 2008 9:57 AM)

Its tough starting a business My mother was an I like IKE republican but now even she would have to admitt we need a new way to finance healthcare as the currancy mineplators and the cut throat wage employers rape the futher from our childern.
these are times requiring radical soultions as those companies enjoyed tax breaks to distroy the homelands middleclass for personal gain let us take away such tax breaks and get our money back.taxcompanies when they wish to export jobs so it is not worth while to distroy jobs in the homeland for personal gain.
Tax inports to pay for the citizens healthcare is only fair after decades on the downward slope of unfair trade let those that have so greatly benefited from the demise of the American middleclass pay their just due I'm certian that once those forces of greed are made responsable for healthcare costs healthcare costs will  be swiftly brought in line, that industry will be held accountable by the forces of greed instead of being allowed to run wild by those that would never be hurt from runaway increasesin vcosts

dave victory homeland (Sent Sunday, March 16, 2008 8:52 AM)

The current "health care crisis" today was created by government regulation. If health care providers were able to market nationwide as opposed to the state by state system that we have now, health care prices would drop drastically.

Anyone who thinks the government that created the current "crisis" would do a better job once it was fully in control of health care is living in a world of ignorance and make believe.

Markets regulate price. What happens when markets are not allowed to regulate price is what we have now.

Terry Reeves (Sent Monday, March 17, 2008 12:46 PM)

Background: Speaking as a corporate CFO, MBA FInance, CPA, and Master in Public Policy Administration and purchaser/negotiator of healthcare insurance contracts..

Some blissful ignorance here.

No where did God write that business must provide insurance.  The business of business is making money.  It is not in buying and providing healthcare insurance.  I suggest that many, many employees would happily opt for something better than we or our competitors provide.

Medical insurance is an oligopoly (competition of the few).  There is precious little price competition amopng the carriers.  From experience, I can tell you that the same coverage from multiple carriers will result in vitually the same premium quote.  And government has nothing to do with it.

On the other hand, seniors have made it clear that you couldn't get them out of Medicare with dynamite and a tow truck.  For those who have not noticed, Medicare is a government program.

The only solution we in business have come up with is to shift costs to employees (less coverage, higher deductibles, etc.). This is also known as pay cuts.  I won't even address the question of those without any insurance.

For those of you who are healthy and think you are going to stay that way, pat yourself on the back, but don't hurt yourself.  You are wrong.  You are not going to stay healthy forever.  Our actuaries inform us that in the fulness of time, you too will become an expensive problem.

You may have heard that GM has $1,500 of medical expense in every car.  Japanese carmakers have zero.  That is because, Japanese taxpayers subsidize healthcare.  For the foreign factories in the US, the workforces tend to be younger and healthier, and so less expensive. And the factories are located in non-union states and so are able to short change their employees. That will change, but for now this is a good example of the competition American companies face.  And don't bother to say unions are the problem.  Abolish every union in the country and business would still have the problem of buying and administering insurance for the other 90% of employees.  And once more, buiness is not in the insurance business.

The only solution is a government (taxpayer, both corporate and individual)funded program.  Some of us will gain and some lose, but most will be happier.  See my remarks on Medicare above.




The business of business is making money.

John De Roy, St. Louis, MO. (Sent Tuesday, March 18, 2008 1:36 PM)

We do need universal health care. My husband is 50 years old. He has had health insurance up until two years ago, when I retired. He owns his own buisness, can't get insurance because he has type 2 diabetis. He is uninsurable. Maybe we should not pay for wealthy
goverment workers insurance. The health care is going up each year. How many more will be without insurance?

Delores Krings, Phillips Wi.(Friday 28,2008 .05:55 pm) (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 6:56 PM)

I'd like to see a system where you can get medicare early if you've earned enough money (and thus paid enough medicare tax), thus enabling people with enough money to retire earlier.  As far as a true national system: it has the potential to save money, so I like it, but I know the government will screw it up somehow, and the first way they'll do that is by paying for it with another income tax.  If it saves money and we pay for it with premiums, then lets make a government run system an option for people.  If through competing with existing plans, it puts the insurance companies out of business then its clearly the best option.  
Oh, and John DeRoy, there is a reason the workforces of the Japanese car companies are younger.  They aren't filled with overpaid union workers who don't want to give up the gravy jobs they managed to snag years ago when the company was actually growing.  If there's one reason I don't want universal healthcare its to subsidize Detroit anymore than my parents did buying all those "American" cars.  

Bill, Newark, DE (Sent Tuesday, April 08, 2008 2:09 PM)



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