Comments on: Entrepreneurs leave the Republican party

By: kevin_carson

kevin_carson — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:39:24 +0000

I confess Patrick D is correct. I read the post too quickly and caught the reference to Inc., but missed the “small-business” part.

By: Patrick D

Patrick D — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:37:21 +0000

To address the topic, entrepreneurs favoring a shift of the health care burden to government and away from businesses is not surprising. People start businesses to make money and, ideally, do something they are passionate about; not assume some level of responsibility for the health care of the people they employ.

Most new businesses fail within a short period of time. The stat used to be something like 9 out of 10 in the first 12 months. I doubt its changed. Government taking on the expense of health care allows start-ups to take it off their P&L and removes the advantage larger, established competitors have in using health care plans to attract employees.

By: Patrick D

Patrick D — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:24:06 +0000

The comments above from Kevin and Mona are examples of statements that make me take their rants against corporations with a HUGE grain of salt.

The original post is about the views of small businesses/entrepreneurs regarding the role of government in health care; not the views of large corporations and their CEOs. The comments leave me thinking that either Kevin and Mona don’t care about the topic or they simply don’t know what they are talking about.

By: Mona

Mona — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 03:12:50 +0000

Kevin is right: How many CEOs of Fortune 500 (or 2000) corporations are libertarians and free marketeers, rather than corporatist?The answer, as far as I know, is: zero.

Your real libertarians tend to come from small businesspeople — among others. {Mona edited}

By: kevin_carson

kevin_carson — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:12:48 +0000

Big business has had a history of switching to the Democrats, though, when they can use the welfare state to subsidize corporate operating costs. It’s mainly the largest corporations that still offer health insurance as a fringe benefit, and it’s probably the fastest-growing part of their personnel costs. They’d love to have the taxpayers foot the bill instead.