Spotted Cow Brewer Spot On

By Keith R. Schmitz

Here is a heart-filled statement on universal health care from the New Glarus Brewing Company's web site:

Deb (the owner) is a supporter of Universal Healthcare because she knows what it’s like to be poor. And not the kind of poor that you might have to buy a Gateway computer instead of the new imac, or the kind of poor in which you have to choose to buy Gap instead of Louis Vuitton, or even the kind of poor that you might just have to wait for these items to go on sale before buying them… I mean the kind of poor that makes you choose between eating and getting medicine for an ear-infection.

The kind of poor that only allows you to buy second-hand clothes on sale. And it’s not because she doesn't work hard. She is one of the hardest working women I know, which is probably the reason that she was the first woman to start and run a brewery in the US. The reason that she supports universal health care is because she believes, and knows, that despite how hard you work, a lot of what you have access to (be it health care, food, education, and the like) depends a lot on who you were born to.

Either your parents have enough money to feed you every day or they send you to work after school at 16 to help pay the bills. Either your parents have enough money to pay for your health care, or they don’t eat (or eat mac & cheese) for a few months to cover the cost of your antibiotics from the bug you picked up at school. Many don't know what this is like, and have had a great many opportunities shown to them. That is one of the greatest gifts that a person can get.

However, for those out there who aren’t as fortunate, universal healthcare could mean the difference between eating and not, being sick or not, and dying or not. And no one wants to see their taxes go up. But (I would hope) no one wants to see a sick kid not get help because his parents can’t afford it either. I don’t speak for Deb, but I do speak to her love of people, regardless of stature, education, or inheritance. The reason she supports this is to help people.

New Glarus Brewing Co. already gives their employees healthcare coverage, because we realize how important it is. We believe that it is the responsibility of companies to provide care for the employees who may very well spend their entire lives helping to make that business successful, and paying for healthcare is a very small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.

It's all about choices, and though my brand is Pilsner Urquell, next time when I am out I am going think about a Spotted Cow. Someone with this kind of empathy has the heart to turn out a good product, because in business, that's what it is really all about.