Don't we all support small businesses?

A study done by the National Center for Policy Analysis has the current health care law negatively impacting the incentives for small businesses to hire more workers. This is likely due to the provision which provides a 50% tax credit for businesses with less than 10 employees, who make an average of $25,000 a year. The tax credit is reduced as more employees are hired. This naturally gives an incentive to keep businesses small. Why is this a bad thing? Local businesses do wonders for both working conditions and community development. Small businesses are run by locals, who keep most of the earnings in the community. This stimulates the local economy and keeps the wages of the management from skyrocketing out of proportion. In terms of the health care law, small businesses are the ones who need the most assistance with providing health coverage, and do wonders for the local community.

The role of health-care and retirement benefits in a postindustrial economy

It is not news to anyone that the United States produces nothing anymore. We have transitioned from an industrial to a service based economy in roughly thirty years in a process dubbed deindustrialization. The typical job in the 1950s was a life long, well paid, pensioned, unionized, and relatively secure manufacturing job. These jobs have recently been replaced by mechanization or outsourced to Southeast Asia. The American economy is now a service sector economy, specialization in the provision of services such as food, medical care, education among other things. The jobs found in the service sector are for the most part short term, lacking in job security, non-unionized, and with few retirement or healthcare benefits. My question is; how do pensions and healthcare coverage fit in with this new organization of our economy?

In our former industrialized economy, health-care was provided primarily by the unions and the corporations themselves. Pensions were provided by the government through Social Security and through the corporations. In a service sector economy, it is impossible for employers to provide adequate health-care and pensions to their employees. Many of them are relatively temporary and low paid, leaving little reason to provide benefits. It is extremely inefficient to constantly shift between health-care policies. The same goes for pensions. It is impossible for modern service sector workers to acquire pensions because of their constantly shifting work situation.

Who should provide these services, if not the employer? My answer: the federal government. Jobs may shift endlessly and their employers go through periods of success and failure, but the government will always be there to pick up the tab. By having the federal government take over health-care coverage from the workers (preferably in a single payer system), it would consolidate the health care system and give the government a direct incentive to promote public health. By providing a strengthened Social Security system, workers could contribute a portion of their income to one source that would always be there, not one that will only be built during the duration of their employment.

The cost of the health care and pension shift to the federal government would be paid for by increased taxes on businesses. This might not even be necessary because the increased productivity and job creation of businesses without the constraints of health insurance for its workers would translate into an increase in tax revenue. The key to a service sector economy is portability. By giving responsibility to the federal government, workers' pensions and health care coverage would be absolutely portable, and likely save a lot of money along the way.

This is all hypothetical. The fact that we could barely pass a health care bill the Heritage Foundation was advocating for 16 years ago shows how unrealistic this is.

Come on Obama, we need your leadership!

Harry Reid is now saying he will not commit to passing comprehensive immigration reform this year. Climate change legislation is now predicted dead in the senate. The public health insurance option died in the health bill. All of these are attributed to the failure of Obama to take a more aggressive stance in shaping the legislation that forms the core of his agenda. Many would say this is the sign of a president who knows where to wade into the fight and when to stay at the sidelines. This is a virtue, true, but you can't only get involved in the final push.

You can spend a year completing a health-care bill, but for every day you aren't shaping its direction it will move in the wrong direction. This will undoubtedly happen with the immigration and climate change legislation the senate is currently debating. Obama can't just clap his hands and pass anything that congress gives him. It is time for some backbone.

This vaccination will cost you two chickens

You know Harry Reid is in trouble for reelection when he trails challengers like Nevada GOP chairman Sue Lowden. Harry Reid is best known for passing the health bill through the senate in December. His plan relies on state exchanges for people to purchase insurance. Sue Lowden's plan relies on.. chickens? Here is the quote.

Before we all started having healthcare, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor. I’m not backing down from that system.

Now I'm no expert in health economics but I think this plan has serious flaws. First, most of the chicken farms are located in the South. Where does this leave the rest of the country? Second, does this mean that health insurance companies will be required to maintain healthy populations of poultry? Maybe they'll relocate the Medicare administration to a farmhouse. Thank you again, Republicans, for providing entertainers like Stephen Colbert with endless ammunition.

The only bump you're going to receive will occur on your head in November

Sorry, James Clyburn, there is absolutely no way that Democrats will get a bump from the recent passage of health care reform. This goes for you too, Bill Clinton. Though the bill you passed will undoubtedly help millions of uninsured Americans, they will not feel the benefits until 2014 or later. There is no telling who will be controlling congress and the White House by then, but you can be sure that they will be taking credit for this. Besides, this bill doesn't really do all that much for the people who already have health insurance through their employer. Good job passing the most progressive social legislation since the Great Society, but don't expect anybody to thank you for it.