The Treatment Is Worse Than the Disease

Earlier this year Governor Schwarzenegger put forth a bold new health care proposal for California, requiring that all Californians purchase health insurance. While laudable, there is concern that the subsidized coverage which is promised to those who cannot afford insurance could put a serious strain on an already over-burdened budget, even with companies pitching in 4% of their payroll to a state account, should they decide not to provide insurance to their employees.

In response, Democratic legislators have put together their own proposals, which would require companies to foot a larger piece of the pie:

Escalating the already tense fight about what financial burden businesses should bear, the Democrats who control the Legislature proposed Tuesday that most California employers be required to spend the equivalent of at least 7.5% of their payrolls on health care — nearly twice the amount Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed.

The mandate on employers would raise more than $5 billion and — along with federal taxpayer money and worker contributions — allow California to extend insurance to about 69% of the 4.9 million people who lack it at any given moment. Among states, only Hawaii has a significant employer mandate. But the Democratic proposals in California would go further by including dependent coverage and more part-time workers.

Those of us to the left-of-center tend to celebrate proposed legislation that helps those who, for whatever reason, cannot do for themselves. Especially if large corporations are the ones who contribute a healthy percentage of the costs.

The problem with this, however, is that large corporations, as a rule, already offer health care benefits to their employees and would not be required to give to the state fund unless the employee benefits equaled less than 7.5% of payroll. So guess who the burden to fund the desperately needed health care state fund would fall upon?

The small business owner.

Another thing that we liberals tend to like to encourage is independent business. We usually like our local mom-and-pop record stores and book stores over the soulless mondo-stores. We think Geek Patrol is kinda neat, but prefer to give our computers to the repair guy in the neighborhood who is a wiz at retrieving our info from fried drives. And isn't it better for the little guy to make money at coming up with new toys than for Mattel to rake in even more from ever-expanding toy opportunities?

Problem is, the average small business owner simply cannot afford to contribute 7.5% of payroll. That's assuming employees can even be afforded. Says Larry Spinak, founder of CompuNerds, "I have two employees, but they're really subcontractors and I use them part time. A big reason I don't have regular employees is because I can't afford all the benefits, etc. Another 7.5% would make it even more difficult."

And for those who do have employees? The proposed requirement could potentially put them out of business. According to a local business owner working in the toy industry (who prefers to remain anonymous), "Any additional tax on small business is potentially crippling. 7.5 percent of payroll is a huge number once you know that payroll is the largest expense in any business, 40 to 70% of all company income in many cases. Add that to the myriad of existing taxes - state, federal and local - insurances required by law, unemployment contributions and the ever famous 7.5% matching funds for Social Security. [...] This expense can make the difference between hiring and not hiring and not having a business to employ anyone including oneself."

Many large companies, should they decide the requirements of a certain state are too onerous to their bottom line, can opt to move to a friendlier state. It's not cheap, but they have the resources.

Not so the small business. Even if the business isn't tied to the community - as many of them seem to be - uprooting to another street would be prohibitive, let alone another state. We'd lose more of what we lefties love and there are precious few of those independent minded business folks as it is.

This is another reason why single-payer health care is so important to Californians. The system needs to be completely revamped and the playing field needs to be leveled, but not on the backs of the poor.

And not on the backs of small business owners.

ACTION ALERT: Help Keep Internet Radio Alive!

The giant corporate music labels have decided that going after college kids downloading music from peer-to-peer networks and Digital Rights Management (DRM) aren't enough to keep the average music listener from cutting into their huge profits. Now they've strong-armed the Copyright Review Board into hiking fees for each song streamed by webcasters:

The new fee structure would change the basis of the payments to a flat fee for each song streamed on a per-user basis. Thus, in 2007, every song sent to every listener would net SoundExchange $0.0011, regardless of whether the broadcaster made any money by doing so. But that's probably not the worst of it. The fees are scheduled to more than double over the next five years, and apply retroactively to the start of 2006. Under this plan, it's hard to imagine that Internet broadcasting will make much financial sense without a dramatic increase in commercial time.

Luckily, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA), along with Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Ill.), has introduced H.R. 2060 - the Internet Radio Equality Act, which would overturn that recent ruling.

If your representative is not one of the co-sponsors, I urge you to sign FreePress' petition and let your Congressmember know how important it is to keep internet radio alive.

Won't Somebody Think of the Vegetables?

Those poor defenseless fruits and vegetables have got a champion in the form of California State Assemblymember Audra Strickland (R-Thousand Oaks). For years, whenever some thoughtless critic of conventional farming methods dared to point out that pesticides were deadly to humans as well as pesky insects, or that genetic manipulation of produce might not be entirely healthy for consumers, or that maybe, just maybe, leafy vegetables with E. coli could make some people very sick and, occasionally, very dead, consumable flora have had no one to turn to to defend their rights.

But now Assemblymember Strickland has donned the red cape and leotard with the big "S" (for Super Assemblymember) and leapt to the defense of commercially grown produce (and their big bucks growers), drafting AB 689, the "Perishable agricultural product defamation" bill, which would allow growers to sue anyone who dared libel spinach and tomatoes and squash (amongst other innocent, health-depriving - vegetation) as being not entirely good for the populace at large:

This bill would allow a producer of a perishable agricultural
product, as defined, who suffers actual damages as a result of another person's disparagement of the producer's product to recover those actual damages if certain facts are found to be true. [Emphasis mine] The bill would define "disparagement" for these purposes as a false and unprivileged publication regarding a perishable agricultural product that clearly impugns the safety of the product. The bill would require the plaintiff to bear the burden of proof as to each element of the cause of action.

Should this bill be passed, California would join such forward thinking states as Texas and Georgia (as well as eleven other states) in protecting those who have, until now, had no voice: multi-million dollar agricultural interests.

May the cucumbers bless Ms. Strickland...