Talking Points - A Government Takeover of Health Care Will Hurt Small Businesses

Talking Points: A Government Takeover of Health Care Will Hurt Small Businesses

OCTOBER 14, 2009
  • The Democrat plan for a government takeover of health care would impose more than $820 billion in new tax hikes.
  • Democrats want to enact a $544 billion surtax on the so-called "rich" to help pay for their government takeover of health care.
  • According to data from the IRS, more than half of those targeted under the Democrats' health care "surtax" are small business owners.
  • Small businesses represent more than 99 percent of all businesses in the country, and have historically employed half of the U.S. workforce and compose half of the total U.S. economy.
  • In the past, small businesses have created more than 72 percent of new jobs across the country.
  • Democrats also want to impose roughly $208 billion in new taxes on businesses that cannot afford to pay for their employees' health care.
  • The result of these new taxes on jobs will be the loss of an estimated 5.5 million jobs.
  • According to research conducted by Harvard Professor Kate Baicker, minority workers will be twice as likely to lose their jobs as their white counterparts, if the Democrats' jobs-killing tax hikes become law.
  • Since the current recession began almost two years ago more than 7 million jobs have been lost.  The Department of Labor reports that 263,000 jobs were lost in September alone.
  • Why are Democrats pushing a government takeover of health care that will inflict harm on small businesses and make job losses even worse?