By the way - I don’t oppose health insurance reform. But I do oppose this bill. If it goes through I have two businesses that I will have to close and about 60 people will be without jobs. They are break even businesses (restaurants that we took over to keep from closing) and we have cut to the bone to keep them open. Between this bill and George Miller wanting to have all employers pay any worker who calls in sick an hourly wage for having missed work (while still paying the person called in to replace the sick worker) both businesses become unsustainable, even with a recovery.

Not asking for sympathy - they were marginal businesses in the first place and businesses go out of business all the time. But these measures add yet another set of immovable costs to the labor intensive service sector that many businesses simply won’t be able to overcome.

Would I like it if everyone had health coverage? Yes. But, in the scheme of things, it is more important that everyone (including unskilled, marginal workers) have access to employment. Many small businesses will be put over the edge with having to fund health care / pay penalties on top of having had to cope with minimum wage going up as a recession hit.

And just so no one thinks I am being a catastrophist, I know that this thing may pass but that the Senate will be a different battle, so passage on Saturday is not the end of the world.