Small-biz divided on health-care reform

Some small-business owners, however, support a public plan. David Borris, owner of Hel’s Kitchen Catering in Northbrook, Ill., told the House Ways and Means Committee April 22 that small businesses “already have enough bad choices – high-deductible, low-benefit plans that are barely worth the paper they’re written on.”

“For businesses that don’t have good options now, offer the choice of a public health insurance plan,” he said. “This will give us greater bargaining power and encourage competition among insurers to make costs affordable.”

The most important thing is that congress pass no plan that prohibits the states from enacting their own plans.

Levey, for reasons best known to himself, puts out this remarkably tone deaf report on the healthcare debate. I say this because in addition to the usual fear mongering, there are no quotes from any single payer advocate. Fourteen of the 93 cosponsors of HR 676 are from California, and that does not count newly elected single payer advocate Jackie Speier. Moreover, single payer legislation has passed the California legislature twice, only to be vetoed by the Gropenator.