I run a 30-person company, and health insurance is my second-largest expense after payroll. Every year the broker comes back with a 12 percent increase and I have to choose between worse coverage and smaller raises. The Kaiser Family Foundation's annual survey shows the average family premium through employers now exceeds $25,000 a year. KFF. Universal coverage would take this albatross off every small business in America. My competitors in Canada and Germany do not spend their Octobers haggling with insurers; they spend it running their companies. American businesses are at a structural disadvantage because we tied health care to employment in the 1940s and never untied it. Decouple the two and watch entrepreneurship rise.
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