Why is SMALL BUSINESS across the country not unified & SCREAMING for a public option?

Anyone here ever been a small business person? I have. Twice. With employees. One of the greatest hardships for small business is health benefits for employees. Since you are a SMALL business, it eats up a far greater percent of your gross.

How many of you out there are Employed by small businesses that offer squat in terms of benefits? You may or may not be aware of this, but I was told by my advisers that as a business owner I HAD to offer the same healthcare to full-time employees that I had for myself, if my benefits were run through the corporation and paid by the corporation. Which I was happy to do. In fact, we paid for the ENTIRE health benefit without having the employee contribute at all. This was twenty years ago and health care, while still a large chunk of the bottom line, was not as GROSSLY inflated a figure as it is now. Nowadays, that would be impossible. We tried to be the kind of employers we would want to have as an employee. The businesses basically broke even. We had the pleasure of 24/7 and just barely supported ourselves and provided employment to others, but at some point, we just said -enough!

Another fact about small business and healthcare: If you are in a fairly small group and one or more of your members has a serious or catastrophic illness, the rates for your little group will go through the roof! I have seen this happen as an employee working for a relatively small business. Some of the employees left the group because they could do better independently in the open market, thus negating the ostensible reason for being in a "group" in the first place.

All politicians love hugging and kissing the small business "baby". "We love you and your American sense of entrpreneurialism! Americans can do anything!" Yes, anything but provide decent healthcare in a small business environment for both owners and employees.

small business owners

in an organized sort of way. they keep getting trounced.

and can be convinced to vote against their own self interest.

everday, but I do get your point that some of them have bought into the completely FALSE premise that the Republican Party is the party that is "pro-business". That is exactly the point of my OP. They are wrong.

We need serious outreach to the small business community.

Plus, there is no commentary quite like Stinky commentary. I mean that in a good way.:D

no one has presented the definitive plan to pay for National Health Care. That means that the small business owner may (in his opinion) wide up paying for a substantial portion of it. JMO

and a lot of the ones that do are still republicans anyway.

Really?

What do you base that on?

Don't forget that a lot of small businesses are plumbing, electrical, bookkeeping and other "trades".

These people are very close to what goes on in the world and are quite likely to be dems or independents.

Dogstuff.com is a small business and both of us owners are liberal dems.

Most of our employees are, too, except the one who refuses to vote, in spite of my efforts.

you did notice that i said "a lot" and not "all", didn't you...? :shrug:

One, who is a bit older than me, was a no shit hippy, owned a health foods store with her husband ...... and is pretty much unchanged.

My younger partner and I became friends when we skipped out of work on a bullshit pretense to go see Clinton's first inaugural parade. We founded the company just a few months later.

i said "a lot", not "all".

two different meanings- no kidding...look it up.

The Dem party is (supposed to be) pro-labor and pro-consumer. The "pro-business" repuke party is only pro-corporate business. That leaves small business out in the cold in many ways. You've just hit on one of them.

edit: header

These 3 groups have more overlap than they can possibly imagine - making it in a world slanted to the Republican base, the "have mores".

Get serious..."small business" in deep doo-doo. What are they supposed to do, pay all their employees for a day of so they can protest march? BIG BUSINESS has the resources and the CASH to cajole and bribe and strong-arm and lobby. Small business is small business. They're trying to pay the rent.
.

It's pretty radical, but it would be FANTASTIC if small business shut down for one day to protest the expense of healthcare and the inequalities. Small businesses have unexpected closures all the time:

The power goes out, the streets are flooded, key employee gets sick with no replacement, no delivery, etc.etc.

It would be beyond imagining if a huge amount of small businesses would shut down for one day in recognition of the insurmountable hurdles they face when it comes to healthcare. They could call it "Small Business Healthcare Awareness Day".

The GOPers can dismiss people who are unemployed or poor saying that they will get MediCare (socialized medicine!)

But, they've seemed to have forgotten all about the people you posted about.

Bravo!

Now all we need are commercials!

the message and the organizations formed to provide support to the small business owners.

The conservatives control the chambers of commerce, the kiawanas, the rotary, the lions club, etc.

That is one way that the repugs were able to get so much power, they took over the local community organizations and promoted the message (no taxes, small government, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, yada yada yada ...)

Although, I think it may be that many people assume a fake persona when they go to a Chamber of Commerce meeting. They are going to "network" and "make connections" and many just don't want to rock the boat.

Someone should start a "Progressive Business Owners of America" organization and say that they want to meet about areas of commoon concerns like the rising cost of healthcare, etc. This is a great unmet need in American business. Find a vacuum and fill it. This one needs filling.

to the right - one of the big sources of reagan's votes, for example.

small businesses are being deliberately pushed out by increasing costs. This serves big business well: bigger market share, they control innovation, & the remaining small businesses work for them.

Control. Nothing much has changed from the era when Morgan/Rockefeller controlled oil, steel, & most of everything else.

absorb easily.

When Enron gamed the electrical grid in California, small businesses went under by the truckload. I never heard anyone discuss that to any great extent.

Bottom line, both parties extoll the virtues of small business but do very little to really support and nourish them - it's all lip service.

thinks he runs a Fortune 500 company and that he must think like they do until they eat him.