Mark Cuban: Obamacare Great For Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses

Posted on | December 28, 2013 | Comments Off on Mark Cuban: Obamacare Great For Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses

Mike Magee

You probably already know where I stand on this. I don’t like tying Americans’ health care insurance to employment. It’s not just that it was an accident of history back in the late 40’s or that no other advanced nation has followed our lead. It also has to do with a wide range of policy implications from privacy, to employer conflict of interest, to rates of bankruptcy tied to unemployed ill citizens…and more.

To me it’s a no brainer. And I expect within three to five years, if trends continue, it will be a relic of the past. My belief was bolstered this week by the comments of billionaire “Shark Tanker”, Marc Cuban, an avowed Libertarian who put truth to power in a Wall Street Journal article.

“One initiative that Mr. Cuban says he thinks will help enable entrepreneurship is Obamacare. Though he calls its rollout ‘horrid,’ he thinks the law will help small businesses focus on their strengths rather than worry about health care. ‘As someone who owns chunks of small businesses, the one thing all those companies have in common is [that] buying and providing health care is not a core competency,’ he says. ‘It’s expensive.’”

“By removing the responsibility to provide coverage from these firms and giving it to the government, he says, ‘You’ve freed up money and time.’ When he started his businesses, he never bought health insurance for himself because he thought it was too expensive and preferred to put his money into his companies. Today, he holds up crooked fingers. ‘I broke my fingers playing basketball, and my whole body is broken,’ he says. ‘If I [had] paid a couple hundred bucks a month, maybe my fingers wouldn’t be broken.’”

Well said, Mark Cuban. Well Said!