Bill Bennett: “This letter is from Ron Christensen, who is the vice president of a construction company in a relatively small town in…”

“This letter is from Ron Christensen, who is the vice president of a construction company in a relatively small town in Utah, and the key points of the letter are those which have been made over and over again during this debate. That is, Mr. Christensen tells us that if the Kennedy-McCain bill passes, he will be forced to stop providing health care for his employees. A lot of people listen to this threat, and they say businesses are hard-hearted, businesses are just looking for ways to punish their employees, that businessmen and businesswomen are always motivated by greed, and here is an opportunity for them to save money, they will take the opportunity to save money whenever they get the excuse. Having run a business, I can assure you that is clearly not true. When you run a business, you compete for employees, and you do everything you can to get the best ones to come to work for you. You create salary packages and benefit packages that are better than those at the business down the street so that someone will come to work for you and be loyal to you and help you build your business. You don't view your employees as people to be exploited. You view your employees as a major asset. If you don't have that view, frankly, you won't be in business very long.”