One of the things that first got me really going on the Health Care Reform idea was my own experience with my employer: A large, multi-national manufacturing corporation that regularly appears on 'best places to work' lists (and in many ways, it truly is). In recent years, I've gone thru the usual and probably typical experience that many others have: An everchanging crazy-quilt of generally reduced, more prohibitive health coverage and increased personal costs. My spouse carries her own coverage where she works (a local Insurance Agency, ironically) - same deal there, never the same  2 years in a row, always just a little less for a little more money. Yes, it has more or less 'worked', we are both more or less 'satisfied', but it's hard even in our relatively privileged situation to avoid the sense of a continual, incomprehensible, and eventually disasterous slow downward spiral.

As true as that may be for us as employees, it has also been my conviction for quite some time that it's equally true for our EMPLOYERS: This must have the same unsustainable feel to it for them as it does to us. The fundamental business of ALL businesses (it seems to me) must be the actual thing they DO:  Making or growing something, or selling something, or providing some important service or public benefit. That is where ALL their expertise should be focused in this intensely competitive modern world.

I'm curious how this Health Care Reform debate feels from THAT important side of the fence. How do business owners and business managers FEEL about the fact that the modern American health care system has forced them to spend an excessive and apparently ever-increasing amount of their time and their resources in an area that has nothing to do with their core business mission? If they are involved in GLOBAL competition (my company certainly is), how do they feel about the fact that America is the only major industrialized nation that forces them to carry that added weight around their ankles?

I would be very interested in hearing from people who actually HAVE that direct experience, I honestly don't know what to expect, and I'm not 'fishing' for any particular slant. I would just be curious to know what you think, and I think it would add an important dimension to this discussion.