Will Healthcare Reform Do More Harm Than Good?

For entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship as we know it? Yes, says Rita Gunther McGrath.

This small business expert, warns that the healthcare reform proposals being pushed through Congress—particularly the pay-or-play one, in which small business owners would be required to provide health insurance or pay a tax—would result in lower entrepreneurial productivity. Here's her reasoning:

"The effects of higher individual taxes on rates of entrepreneurship are without an exception, negative. It is well accepted, and has been for decades, that the desire to have a vibrant entrepreneurial economy is at odds with the desire to operate a welfare state, due in large part to the way in which welfare states allocate resources. When the upside to undertaking the risks of entrepreneurship decrease, while the downside of not doing much at all are limited, it becomes hard to justify making the effort. If it is possible to live quite a comfortable life without too much bother, why take on the long hours, the worry and the headaches of small business ownership?"

Go check out her blog to read the rest of her compelling argument against a pay-or-play healthcare proposal. And then go contact your lawmakers to let them know that any healthcare reform proposal that burdens small business owners and adds to their already long list of administrative hassles is not a proposal they should support.