Wisconsin Citizen Action and Me

Last night I had just sat down to dinner when the doorbell rang. The dogs started going crazy. After trying to shut them up and slipping through the front door and onto my porch without letting them out, napkin in hand and still chewing my food, I was greeted by a shaggy haired young man holding...oh no...a clipboard.

Shaggy: Evening. How are you?

Me: [Still chewing, wiping face] Fine.

Shaggy: I'm with Wisconsin Citizen Action. We're asking people to sign our petition [hands me clipboard]. I'm sure you realize how important health care is.

Me: [Swallowing] Sure I do.

Shaggy: That's why we want to enact legislation insuring all people receive adequate health care with businesses providing their fair share.

I was reading the petition at this point and not catching everything Shaggy had to say.

Shaggy: ...if you could just sign the petition, that would be great.

Me: So is this up to the business to participate in the program or would it be mandated by law?

Shaggy: It would be the law that all businesses have to pay their share.

Me: [Handing back the clipboard] Thanks, but I'm not interested in signing this.

Shaggy: Oh. Can I ask why not?

Me: I'm just not crazy about the government telling businesses they have to participate. If it's such a good idea, I'd think they'd want to do it on their own. Thanks. [Start walking back inside].

Shaggy: [Now aggravated] You could be the one without health care!

Me: [Smiling...being polite] Okay, thank you.

Shaggy: People will suffer without this! People like you will see to it!

Me: [Closing door] Thank you. Good night.

Shaggy: It must be good, businesses like Johnson Controls support it!

And...scene!

This legislation is similar to the Maryland/Wal-Mart law recently passed forcing the super chain to dedicate at least 8% of their payroll to employee health benefits or put the money directly into the state's health fund for the poor. In fact, if you visit the WCA website you'll see they repeatedly use Wal-Mart as an example of why this law needs to be passed. I honestly don't know how we, as a society, can assure that everyone has access to affordable health care (not to say it can't be done, just that I don't know how to do it). But I doubt the answer is in forcing businesses to pay for it because they're too successful, too profitable, too big or out of some ill-conceived notion that they got there by being big bad businesses "cheating" their employees and customers. While it's great that in Maryland Wal-Mart has decided to be above this and continue its "commitment to [their] customers, [their] associates and the communities [they] serve," there's simply no reason they should be forced to take the stance in the first place.

On a more personal note, while I live in a very liberal area I'm certainly right-of-center. I've had a lot of experience turning down requests to sign things I don't agree with. Almost always I'm thanked for my time and the person moves on to the next house. This was the first time I had someone start arguing with me. While I was eating dinner. While dogs were going crazy behind me.

At that point, I'm not signing a thing.