Vermont's Job Creation Strategy

Single Payer Health Care:

The logistics will come in time, he says. Right now, the cost of health care is swelling and Shumlin believes setting Vermont up on a single-payer system will create a more sustainable way to take care of everybody.
"We have a crisis," he says. "What I find alarming is that so many of us are willing to pretend that everything is going to be OK if we stick with the current system. So we're taking the bull by the horns up here in Vermont."
If Vermont does get it right, it could see more businesses and jobs coming in. Shumlin sees this type of health insurance as a big financial ease for employers, especially small-business owners.
That's a big economic incentive, but it wasn't enough to save the single-payer provision of the Affordable Care Act from being axed by Congress last year. Yet Vermont might be the right size and the right political environment to be a sandbox for a single-payer system in America, and Shumlin believes it could serve as a model for other states.

I think this makes a ton of sense for businesses, and the state.  The state creates the largest possible risk pool, eliminates multiple bureaucracies and makes the system simpler.  Businesses don't have to worry about hiring a person who ends up being a large risk factor, wasting time searching through various insurance options and helping employees navigate through the byzantine procedures of dealing with hospital, doctor and insurance bills for months after a major procedure.  I can only blame the reflexive distrust of government which has become endemic within the business community, even though the members of the business community are amongst the biggest beneficiaries of governmental action.  I understand that many regulations are a pain in the ass, but a little work, patience and competence will give a good business person an advantage over less competent and lazier competitors.  Most of the regulations are pretty easy to comply with, and my experience is that most of the regulators are helpful if you deal with them in a friendly and forthright manner.  They are people too, and if they are treated with disrespect and distrust, they will respond in kind.  If you treat them well, they will do likewise.  It's not rocket science, it's the Golden Rule.  There are exceptions, but just building up distrust of regulators because your buddies in the Chamber of Commerce are right-wing loons is not smart business strategy.