November 15, 2012 by David K. Sutton
CEOs and Obamacare: Why it Proves We Need Medicare for All
What you need to understand about the CEOs who are firing employees and cutting back on hours and pay because of “Obamacare”…
First, well, they are assholes.
Second, these decisions are not driven by sound business analysis, they are driven by political ideology. And the reason you can be sure that is the case is that nothing has changed other than President Obama winning re-election. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is not scheduled to go into full effect until 2014.
Third, the response by a number of CEOs to mistreat their employees because of the Affordable Care Act is all the proof required to make a push for Medicare for all. These CEOs are showing us why we cannot trust businesses to do right by their employees and why we cannot hope to achieve an equitable health care system if we leave it up to employers to provide health care insurance. And you know what? I’m betting most CEOs would be glad to get out of the health care insurance business (well, unless that happens to be their business). All companies that provide health care insurance to their employees absorb overhead costs to provide that benefit. With Medicare for all, that would no longer be a burden they would need to bear. If you think Medicare is a good idea for senior citizens, why would it be a bad idea for everyone else? It’s silly to try to make that argument. Medicare works, it’s widely popular, and any concerns with the financial longevity would largely be solved by opening Medicare up from a high risk pool to a broad risk pool (the entire country).
These empathy challenged CEOs are giving liberals, hell, everyone, a good reason to lobby their elected officials to propose legislation that would open up the Medicare system to all citizens.
