Obama Disengenuous Argument for the Weekend

The key flaw in Obama's argument is that you set up the exchanges and encourage health care co-operatives without nationalizing the system or bankrupting the nation.

A major part of the healthcare debate has centered on small businesses, which are responsible for much of the hiring in the United States.Democratic plans would require many small businesses to provide insurance for their employees or face a penalty. Some small-business owners worry that will add a punitive cost at a time when they are struggling to rebound from the recession.

At the same time, Republicans argue a proposed surtax on millionaires that Obama has backed could subject some small businesses to extra taxation.Obama used his weekly radio address to insist that small businesses had a lot to gain from the healthcare overhaul, based on a report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Small businesses, he said, would be able to purchase health insurance through an "insurance exchange."He described that as a "marketplace where they can compare the price, quality and services of a wide variety of plans, many of which will provide better coverage at lower costs than the plans they have now."

"Small businesses that choose to insure their employees will also receive a tax credit to help them pay for it. If a small business chooses not to provide coverage, its employees can purchase high quality, affordable coverage through the insurance exchange on their own," he said.Low-income workers would qualify for a subsidy to help them cover the costs, he said.

'WHERE ARE THE JOBS?'

In the Republican response to Obama's radio address, Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers said she believed small businesses would pay a steep price under the Democratic plans."Because the Democrats' plan is bankrolled by a small business tax, more jobs will evaporate. We've lost more than three million jobs since the beginning of the year and Americans have every right to ask, 'Where are the jobs?'" she said.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said, "It's worth asking why small businesses -- which created about two thirds of the new jobs in this country over the past 10 years -- get hit so hard under these plans."

Between the mandate and the taxes these guys are going to kill small business owners. From John Fund:

• Small Businesses. Employers who don’t provide coverage will have to pay a tax up to 8% of their payroll. Yet those who do provide coverage also have to pay the tax—if the law says their coverage is not “adequate.” Amazingly, even if a small business provides adequate insurance but its employees choose coverage in another plan offered through the government, the employer still must pay.

To think the President is being disingenuous again.