Small Biz Lobby Reacts To Obama Health Care Speech
Sep 14th, 2009 | By Dawn Rivers Baker | Category: Politics & PolicyThe President was going to give a major speech on health care reform to a joint session of Congress. This is something that doesn’t usually happen beyond the annual State of the Union Address. Said the White House Press Office, ‘Let there by hype.’ And there was hype. In the end, the Great Speech got hijacked by a rude guy from South Carolina — and it is quite telling that everybody was talking about Joe Wilson on the morning after the President’s speech last week. Then again, that is probably because Obama didn’t really say anything new, which was the major complaint against the speech registered by small business advocates in response.
The National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE), the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and the National Small Business Association (NSBA) all noted specific provisions that were not mentioned in the President’s broad outline of his proposal (and it is difficult to believe that any of these seasoned Washington types really expected that sort of detail in a prime time speech). They all reiterated their general support for reform and explained why they thought this effort would fall short. The overall message? ‘If your reforms don’t reduce costs for small businesses, then why bother?’
