It was during the Reagan Administration. My dad lost his job as a computer programmer — back before anybody ever heard of the “new economy” and “information technology”, but even then computers were considered a necessary way forward. As good as he was at his job, the fact remained that he had learned what he knew in the trenches. He had no college degree, and thus was at a disadvantage applying for computer industry jobs by 1982.
So he did what any sensible boomer of the day did when faced with unemployment: he became an entrepreneur. There were a lot of computer equipment companies founded in the Carter and Reagan years. Many of them are still in business. But that isn’t what my dad did. Dad sold Amway. Then he sold motivational cassette tapes. And finally, he sold wholesale beauty supplies.
Many companies are started by entrepreneurs in periods of recession or other game-changing economic periods. These new businesses employ people, pick up the slack of closing businesses, and ultimately help lead us out of problem periods. This time, we cannot count on entrepreneurs.
It isn’t just the way that small businesses get financing, although that is still an issue (see also, the SBA can do little more for start-ups than help obtain a second mortgage and nobody has equity any more). There is an even bigger obstacle to starting a business.
That obstacle is health insurance. It is a much bigger issue than it was in the early 80s because health care and insurance costs are so much higher now than they were then (and much higher than in any other industrialized nation). Entrepreneurs can’t afford decent health insurance. That means that if they don’t have a spouse who is gainfully employed such that she/he can get affordable insurance for the whole family, the business fails. And since many successful ventures at least initially count on support (read: unpaid labor) from family members, that’s a problem.
And this is when everybody is healthy. It doesn’t even address medical catastrophe, chronic conditions, or medical related bankruptcy.
The longer I look at the issues, the more fervently I believe that true health insurance reform is vital to the economic recovery of this country. Not mandatory insurance, not anything the health insurers are going to like, but true and comprehensive reform.
In closing: 5 Japanese things we screwed up; the ultimate portable stove; Thom Hartmann and Dave Johnson have related thoughts (I still think the focus needs to be on automatic coverage for kids because they don’t have employers and are often uninsured through no fault whatsoever of their own — I mean really, can you see a kindergartner filling out a Medicaid application?); buy American? How?; an Eliza Doolittle from Malawi; much too bigger to fail; Department of Energy wasting energy; the cause of the next stock market crash will be retiring boomers (assuming they can retire); Smart Child Left Behind (nothing new here, more the pity); Return of the Robber Barons; and I just can’t resist linking the Purina Diet.