General Discussion

They were a non profit who connected special needs kids with wheelchairs and specialized bikes, they expanded to the specialized bikes market mainly after a good supplier with the exact product they needed was found. Supplier is in China of course. It's a great cause and it's a living for my BIL, his brother, and their couple employees. They're preparing to close, they're going to try to eke it out until the Summer, but the numbers don't add up anymore and the market won't bear the price hikes they would need to make to stay in business.

Health insurance absorbs some of the cost for people, so the amount leftover was doable for most people, changing that from a couple hundred bucks to $1500 is just not doable, they simply don't have customers at that price. Not sure their exact numbers, but basically, for a $1500 bike, insurance was coverng $1200, so the customers would need to come up with $300 out of pocket to get their special needs child a custom bike. Now that bike is $3000, insurance still only covers $1200, so they would need to come up with $1800 out of pocket to get a bike for thier kid.

So my BIL will be 62 years old, and reentering the job market soon. Small businesses will just close. Large corporations will do layoffs, I am sure 90% of them already have layoff plans they've vetted and will spring them when they have to.