Opinion: Obamacare might not be good for small businesses or the rich, but it’s good for everyone else

To the editor: According to Tom Scott of the Nation Federation of Independent Business, small businesses in California will be celebrating the end of the Affordable Care Act because they will save some money from repealed taxes. (“The GOP healthcare bill would be good for small business,” Opinion, March 23)

Apparently, Scott’s organization is not bothered by the loss to California of many billions of federal dollars and the loss of insurance coverage for millions that will result if the Republicans’ American Health Care Act become law.

Hopefully, the small businesses that Scott’s organization represents will not lose too many customers to sickness.

Howard Cott, Los Angeles

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To the editor: If “health insurance costs remain the No. 1 concern of small-business owners in NFIB’s Problem and Priorities survey, the same place they’ve occupied in that survey for 30 years,” then how is it that Affordable Care Act is some new culprit? It sounds like small business owners were equally unhappy with the old system.

Scott wants “affordability, flexibility and predictability in the health insurance market.” I’m retired now, but in my working years I sold health insurance to small businesses. If there’s one thing that I found absolutely true, it was that no one ever had affordability, flexibility and predictability in their health plans.

The Affordable Care Act got rid of the most onerous parts of our old system, including annual and lifetime caps and lockouts due to pre-existing conditions. Perhaps some business owners do not like that the law gave their employees a way to buy policies on their own, allowing them to escape the insurance handcuffs that once tied them to their jobs.

Barry Davis, Agoura Hills

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