Jon Stewart to business owners.

[Ichingcarpenter]

[liberal_at_heart]

1. you tell it brother

halle freakin lujah!

[Spock_is_Skeptical]

2. you got that right.

[snappyturtle]

3. What I don't get is that for may years employers offerred health insurance on their own.

Now, companies complain. Is it because ACA is mandated? Whatever, this scenario may lead eventually to single payor. IMHO

[ReRe]

8. Yes, you are right...

...I'm old enough to remember how it "used" to be. I think it was during the famous union busting kick off during the 80s...when Reagan was in there. Yeah, the beginning of the good ole downsizing days. The ACA is going to address the health care situation and some businesses are having fits about it.... I, too, hope that Universal Healthcare can be passed during POs second term. We will never be in a more advantageous situation to get it done.

[LostinRed]

4. yup nicely said

[Madam Mossfern]

5. I've been saying that

but no one will listen. More people have to say it. We need to take a clue from the Republicans and chant it everywhere, write it everywhere, make it the slogan of slogans - bumper stickers, posters, ads on TV, Youtubes, tweets.

Educate yourself on the specifics - on exactly how it would work, the quality of care. Arm yourself with arguments to counter "their" claims about how it won't work.

Do it!
Do it!

For the sake of small businesses and large business, for the sake of the economy, for the sake of people. Do it!

[tclambert]

6. Well, you're not a celebrity.

People would rather get their medical advice from celebrities. Who else you gonna ask? A doctor? Bor-ing.

[fasttense]

7. Exactly

When I heard Crappy-Food-Applebee franchise owner complaining about having to provide health care for his workers, I thought why didn't he push for single-payer? Why did fools like him and other corporations fight tooth and nail against single-payer?

When Papa John's CEO said he would have to raise prices of their crappy pizza, I thought well maybe your voice should have been raised in favor of single-payer. Maybe if he had come out in favor of single-payer, he wouldn't have to raise the price of his crappy pizza. Single-payer would have relieved all those greedy CEOs of the awful burden of providing health care to their workers.

[Volaris]

20. They didn't know they were on the same side of the argument as the "dirty Soshilists"...

unitl the CAPITIALISTS won the war in Congress that mandates that the FREE-MARKET handle the problem. Now they know how the rest of us feel. Maybe NEXT time, they won't blindly hate Government so much that they can actualy DO what is IN their best economic and business interests. In the mean time, I hope the lesson learned is a painful one, and Fuck them for insisting this be a lesson learned the harder of more than one way.

[geckosfeet]

9. Agreed. But the money will have to come from somewhere.

Someone, everyone including businesses will have to take a take hit. I do believe though, that the tax increase for businesses will probably be a lot lower than the current expense of administering and providing employee health care programs.

But - until we get the tax rate fiasco ironed out, until corporate and uber wealthy tax shelters are eliminated, there is no equitable source of revenue for single payer/national health care. Unless we start cutting back on military spending (oooooh commie talk).

[Motown_Johnny]

10. Or, if businesses now started fighting for single payer healthcare.......

[OneGrassRoot]

11. Exactly! THAT's the campaign we need to start now...

Who's with me? We need to start getting the business community on board and for them to help push for single payer once they realize how it helps THEM.

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-faq#insurance_companies

http://www.healthcare-now.org/

[Patiod]

12. The audience went nuts over this

I was surprised at the vehemence of the reaction - it can't be all hard-line progressives in the audience, can it?

Or are people just now realizing "hey, maybe we need something better than the Heritage Foundation's plan"? (not faulting the President - he got through what he could get passed)

[hootinholler]

13. I couldn't figure out why business wasn't behind single payer

Their position just makes little sense to me. My sister who works for a health insurance company was aghast when I told her I was pro single payer.

[Hydra]

16. Control

One of the issues brought up about why more Americans don't protest:

They're afraid of losing their jobs and more importantly their insurance.

The theory goes that scared workers produce more, so this sort of pressure is desirable. In practice, I've seen that while the pressure creates some extra gain, it's lost via other avenues of stress like extra sick days, work not completed correctly, worker sabotage, etc.

Happy workers are good workers. If the fear is that single payer will give them the freedom to move around to better jobs, then work to keep said workers.

But that means losing the power.

[loudsue]

18. Propaganda. Faux Nooz.

The masses are being lied to on a massive scale, and the government allows it.

[Volaris]

21. Because if you own a business, Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck tell you

you have to HATEHATEHATEHATE EVERYTHING the dirty liberal government does, tries to do, or ever WILL do, even if that thing ends up benefiting your BUSINESS in the long run. In short, they hated the idea because idiots TOLD them to hate it and, as typical Republicans, after that, they didn't really think to hard about it.

THAT'S why.

Something tells me, it won't be long before big business and large corporations start agreeing with the idea of a Public Option, at least, and if it ends up being cheaper for them to have their taxes raised, than what it costs for their cut of business-wide Ins. Premimums, they will back that play the next time it comes up for a vote. Lets not forget, it's probably not quite as dead an idea as some would have us believe.

[progressoid]

14. Thems fightin' words here on DU.

[joeunderdog]

15. Yeah, but...

then how would corporations be able to stifle the growth of small businesses without the suffocating tax we call health insurance?

Health insurance thru a single payer would change the whole game for smaller businesses and the big boys would never allow that.

[Quantess]

17. Well there ya go.

He's got a point.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

19. About a year ago I was at an event with some Scandinavian clients

who had some Arizona economic development wonk clutching her pearls as they explained how the welfare state at home had freed them as married men with children to be entrepreneurial rather than staying at their stable jobs with the telephone company. The chick struck up the conversation with some remark about how it was amazing they had overcome socialism and built their business in Denmark and Finland.

They weren't terribly interested in arguing with this girl or hearing about the possibilities for expanding their business in some unincorporated armpit and the conversation ended. But they couldn't believe what they were hearing, they looked as though it was the stupidest thing they had ever heard.

[Volaris]

22. That's because it probably WAS the stupidist thing they had ever heard...

Because they know full-well and from PERSONAL EXPEIRENCE that correctly administered Social Welfare Programs at the Nationwide level EMPOWER business enterprises in a regulated, hybrid-style Capitalist economy.

[JNelson6563]

23. It would have never passed.

Are you all forgetting the hue and cry raised over ACA in it's current form?

Imagine how it would have been over single payer.

I get Stewart going for the cheap laugh but thought DUers were a bit more informed and, being as cheap laughs aren't our bread and butter, could afford a bit more intellectual honesty.

Julie