Obamacare: Obama won so I fired 22 employees

[_cinepro]

Obamacare is a very real issue for my business. My partners and I have been talking about strategies to deal with it. The 50-employee mark is a critical point, and we have some flexibility in our hiring (I use lots of seasonal labor in the summer), so I may have to take drastic steps to stay below 50 employees. Or I may have to pass along the costs to my clients. Or cut my employees' pay.

As it is, if I do nothing it looks like the costs could exceed my total profits for some years! I don't have the money to just write a check for the additional costs.

If Obamacare is implemented as written, it will be a huge, huge problem for many businesses. If the math works out wrong, it will have a huge impact in the willingness of employers to hire people. Especially as they near the 50-employee mark.

[_Analytics]

Obamacare is a very real issue for my business. My partners and I have been talking about strategies to deal with it. The 50-employee mark is a critical point, and we have some flexibility in our hiring (I use lots of seasonal labor in the summer), so I may have to take drastic steps to stay below 50 employees. Or I may have to pass along the costs to my clients. Or cut my employees' pay.

As it is, if I do nothing it looks like the costs could exceed my total profits for some years! I don't have the money to just write a check for the additional costs.

If Obamacare is implemented as written, it will be a huge, huge problem for many businesses. If the math works out wrong, it will have a huge impact in the willingness of employers to hire people. Especially as they near the 50-employee mark.

Just to look at the other side of your coin, don't your employees already have a huge problem, namely they don't have health insurance?

If you don't like the Conservative approach to this problem (i.e. RomneyCare, ObamaCare, etc.), would you prefer the liberal approach--namely get employers out of the health insurance business and go to a single-payer system?

[_Droopy]

Yes, I do and I did.

Then why did you claim that the employer was trying to "blackmail" his employees into voting for Romney when the employer himself had already explicitly said:

I never tell them which way to vote.

and that:

...but I did explain as a business owner that I have always put my employees first. I always made sure that when I went without a paycheck that made sure they were paid. And I explained that I always put them first and unfortunately I’m at a point where [i]I’m being forced to have to worry about me and my family now and a business that I built from just me to 114 employees.

“I explained to them a month ago that if Obama gets in office that the regulations for Obamacare are gonna hurt our business, and I’m gonna have to make provisions to make sure I have enough money to cover the payroll taxes, the additional health care I’m gonna have to do, and I explained that to them and I said you do what you feel like in your heart you need to do, but I’m just letting you know as a warning this is things I have to think of as a business owner.

Now, if you are a leftist, all of this will be utterly beyond you, I realize (and, as we all know, as far as his business is concerned, he "didn't build that," and hence, it isn't really his business anyway. And perhaps his wife is named Julia, who's entire success, development, and personal achievement in life has been dependent upon government programs and subsidies http://www.barackobama.com/life-of-julia/ ). However, I don't happen to see "blackmail" in the offing here.

If you really want "blackmail," I would point you to the entire federal welfare state. That is among the most alarming and vast vote buying schemes in modern history.

All he was doing was openly disclosing the hard economic realities incident to the policies of Barack Obama and his party. That's not blackmail. Its the passing on of information, upon which one can then conduct himself accordingly.

The choice to be a lemming or a human being is yours.

Except Droopy's. I've read long enough here to know that the signal to noise ratio is vanishingly small, so he's hidden.

You sound like another Bluffalo sockpuppet. How many does this guy have?

I suspect you are every bit as correct as your pre-election predictions. Let's talk again in a couple years and see how employment looks. Heck, even Romney said he needed eight years from now to get things on track.

Rather, let's take a close, unvarnished look at the abject failure of each and every initiative and program Obama has fielded over the last four years. Let's look at his actual record, in other words, not fairy dust theories and creepy crypto-socialist slogans - and from this perhaps we can extrapolate to the next four years (and we can, because we already have a long history of failure of all of these approaches in this country and other nations as witness to the fecklessness of trying them again and again and again and again and again and expecting different results - the definition of insanity)).

[_Analytics]

Yes, I do and I did.

Then why did you claim that the employer was trying to "blackmail" his employees into voting for Romney when the employer himself had already explicitly said:

I never tell them which way to vote.

I didn't blackmail the owner of the warehouse. I merely told him, and I quote, "Gee, bud. This sure is a nice place you got here. It sure would be a shame if it burned down."

[_Kevin Graham]

This is in response to a typical Heritage Foundation piece attacking the ACA: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/03 ... ihop-jobs/

Now, it’s certainly true that some businesses will have to spend more on health care coverage under the new law, but here, Heritage really did its homework in finding the exact kind of business that will be most affected by reform. Step back a moment and realize that the premise is wrong at the outset: businesses are not required to provide coverage under the law, as the Heritage piece claims. Rather, businesses with more than 50 employees (like this chain of IHOP stores) that do not offer insurance would be required to pay a penalty of $2,000 per full time employee (minus the first 30 employees) if any employee receives subsidized coverage through the exchange.

As the Urban Institute’s John Holahan and Bowen Garrett explain, on the aggregate, the impact on businesses is minimal:

Smaller businesses: Premium contributions for firms with fewer than 100 employees would fall by 8.2 percent “because such firms have the option of purchasing coverage in the new Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) exchanges, where administrative costs will be lower than in current markets, and premiums will fall as a result.” Firms under 50 employees are exempt from any employer requirement and will also have access to tax credits to help offset the cost of coverage. Firms with more than 80 workers “would pay $2.0 billion in assessments if their full-time employees receive subsidized coverage through the exchange. On balance, taking premiums and assessments into account, small businesses would save 8.7 percent compared with their current premium contributions” and would have more dollars to grow their businesses.

Firms between 100 and 1,000 workers: Medium-sized firms that don’t offer coverage (more than 95% already do) would pay, in aggregate, “$11.8 billion in assessments due to full-time employees obtaining subsidized coverage through the exchange.” However the total amount in assessments “is very small in comparison to wages and salaries in the United States (0.2 percent of the $6.4 trillion wage base) so any negative impact on jobs must also be small.”

The law assumes that employers have a responsibility to fund health care reform and increase access to coverage, to be sure, but Heritage purposely cherry picked this IHOP businesses and then exaggerated the affects of the law. For instance, Womack estimates that he would have to spend $7,000 to $10,000 per employee, when in reality the penalty for not offering coverage is $2,000 per every full time worker minus the first 35 (the video and blog post suggest that he would have to spend $7,000 for all 1,000 employees[/u]).

The effects of the law on Womack’s business may be difficult to calculate, but these exaggerations only serve to complicate that picture, suggesting that the law would pull the rug from under small businesses without detailing any of the benefits of reform. Towards the end of the video, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) suggests that “the real answer” for businesses who can’t afford health insurance today “is to simply lower the cost of health insurance,” which ACA is projected to do. According to the CBO, reform will reduce average premiums for employers with more than 50 employees by up to 3% and successful delivery system reforms like bundling payments, accountable care organizations, medical homes and care coordination could further lower the growth of health care spending. All this would result in more jobs and higher family incomes — allowing Womack to invest more dollars into his restaurants and expand operations.

[_Kevin Graham]

Obamacare is a very real issue for my business. My partners and I have been talking about strategies to deal with it. The 50-employee mark is a critical point, and we have some flexibility in our hiring (I use lots of seasonal labor in the summer), so I may have to take drastic steps to stay below 50 employees. Or I may have to pass along the costs to my clients. Or cut my employees' pay.

As it is, if I do nothing it looks like the costs could exceed my total profits for some years! I don't have the money to just write a check for the additional costs.

If Obamacare is implemented as written, it will be a huge, huge problem for many businesses. If the math works out wrong, it will have a huge impact in the willingness of employers to hire people. Especially as they near the 50-employee mark.

Just to look at the other side of your coin, don't your employees already have a huge problem, namely they don't have health insurance?

If you don't like the Conservative approach to this problem (i.e. RomneyCare, ObamaCare, etc.), would you prefer the liberal approach--namely get employers out of the health insurance business and go to a single-payer system?

Pretty ironic isn't it? Obama would love to go with a single-payer system, but he has to go more Right Wing with this, just to satisfy Republicans in Congress. Remember, the individual mandate was proposed by the Heritage Foundation. But now that a Democrat wants to employ it, they all hate it.

Eventually we'll have universal health care, single-payer system just like those systems in Japan, Canada, UK, etc. This will be a huge boom for businesses as that burden will be lifted from them. Frankly, I think this idea of businesses providing insurance is a dumb idea but it was a slippery slope that started decades ago and now it is just something people take for granted. But I understand why, because Health Care has become so outrageously expensive, the best way to keep down costs is with group plans like these.

When I came back from Brazil the best insurance I could find would cost me and my family roughly $16,000 per year, and this wouldn't even cover preexisting conditions, and I wasn't guaranteed coverage as they could just drop me anytime they felt I was too unhealthy. I don't know too many people who can afford that. It is like paying cash for a new car every year.

But now my employer pays for my insurance, and I have the option of adding family members at the tune of just $300 per month. No deductibles, just a $15 co-pay, and covers as many people as I have in my family. My wife is now going to have a C-section in six months and I'm just going to pay $15 for it. I hope for a system one day where everyone can enjoy life without worrying about going bankrupt because they got sick due to no fault of their own. I hope it comes very soon because we will be less stressful and much happier as a nation.

[_ajax18]

I hope for a system one day where everyone? can enjoy life without worrying about going bankrupt because they got sick due to no fault of their own. I hope it comes very soon because we will be less stressful and much happier as a nation.

I wish money grew on trees and nobody ever had to die.

[_Analytics]

I hope for a system one day where everyone? can enjoy life without worrying about going bankrupt because they got sick due to no fault of their own. I hope it comes very soon because we will be less stressful and much happier as a nation.

I wish money grew on trees and nobody ever had to die.

Too bad, because money doesn't grow on trees, and everybody eventually dies.

In contrast, outside of the United States, all developed countries have universal healthcare.

[_ajax18]

In contrast, outside of the United States, all developed countries have universal healthcare.

They might have socialized medicine, but they don't have universal healthcare.

[_Analytics]

In contrast, outside of the United States, all developed countries have universal healthcare.

They might have socialized medicine, but they don't have universal healthcare.

Of course they do.