Friday’s Business Journal had a list of the Top 50 Private Sector Employers.

Number 1; Advocate Aurora with 28,557 employees.

The total for all 50 was 177,370. (Yes, I added them all up. Like you, I’m running out of ways to entertain myself!)

Health systems collectively employ 68,883 or just shy of 40% of the total. The others are Froedtert (13,472), Ascension (10,746), Medical College (6,324), Children’s Hospital (5,436) and, ProHealth (4,348).

So, who’s going to pay all those hospital salaries?

In large part, the 1.2 million employees of 448,032 small businesses in Wisconsin. (Source: U.S. Small Business Administration “2018 Small Business Profile.”)

Where am I going with this? Not really sure.

We feed the health system beast every month with our premiums and squeal like pigs going to slaughter.

Without that beast however, would our small business friends join the likes of Allis Chalmers, Falk Corp., Harnischfeger, Rex Chainbelt and . . . . . . . Briggs?!