Posted on 12/16/2014 6:29:14 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Another unintended - but not unexpected - consequence of Obamacare is being felt as the program enters its second year.
More than 20 million Americans who work for small businesses with less than 50 employees are covered by employer insurance. The 50 employee number is significant because if you work for a small business with more than 50 workers, your employer is mandated to cover your health insurance.
But with insurance rates rising, many small businesses of less than 50 employees are opting to drop their coverage and have workers purchase their insurance through the Obamacare website.
If employees qualify for government subsidies, like the managers who switched from Italian Oven’s corporate insurance to individual Obamacare coverage, everybody can win.
Owners don’t have to pay premiums, meaning they can give workers raises, invest in equipment or add to profits instead. And employee take-home pay can rise if subsidies — available even to families with middle-class incomes — are worth more than what a company was contributing.
Whether to cancel a company plan and let workers buy insurance on healthcare.gov or another online exchange “is something that I would say comes up in every conversation with a small-group” employer, said Adam Berkowitz, a consultant with Caravus, a benefits firm based in St. Louis.
“I just had another [small] business call in today and say, ‘You know, we can’t do it. We’re packing it in,’” said Roger Howell, head of Howell Benefit Services in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Anthem, the largest seller of small-business health insurance, lost almost 300,000 members in such plans — many more than expected — in the first nine months of the year. That was 15 percent of the enrollment.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
That’s the object...to send everyone to the government for help. Kinda the same MO as Flood Insurance.
Unintended??? Whatchoo talkin’ ‘bout, Rick? The intended consequence of ObolaDon’tCare is a single-payer government run health care rationing system. Things are proceeding precisely as Commie Libs have foreseen.
Nothing is “unintended” in this anti-America, anti-Rule-of-Law, anti-Constitution, anti-Bill-of-Rights, criminal, racist administration...nothing.
Make no mistake, that’s the goal. American businesses at all levels want out from under ever-escalating health insurance costs. But they had to find a way to let that happen while preserving the health insurance industry’s profits...hence the mandate that we HAVE TO buy their products. It’s genius, really.
This is NOT an unintended consequence. It was baked into the Obamacare cake by design.
...But they had to find a way to let that happen while preserving the health insurance industry’s profits.....
Exactly, this whole program was designed with the help of the big insurance companies. Just check out how much they contributed and paid out to lobbyist.
Crony capitalism at its best.
There IS a way to avoid being coerced into providing government ordained benefits, and it is perfectly LEGAL.
One simply sees to it that his/her SMALL business NEVER, ever grows to trigger number of 50 employees.
Just as generations of businesses, large and small have made decisions based only on TAX CODE ramifications, so do many businesses today, before any expansion, research the PENALTIES of having succeeded in being successful and having your business grow.
Accept the new contract and hire 5 more workers? NO way, it is not worth it.
IIRC, Health benefits....and we’re talking waaaay back..were Union Benefits....a bribe for employees to “love thy Union”.
This is the net result of the corporate party that is led by Obama, Reid, McConnell and “I see the world through rose-colored wine glasses” Boehner. They are interested in serving Wall Street at the expense of savers, Big Business at the expense of Main Street, illegal aliens who will work cheaper at the expense of skilled Americans, Big Insurance at the expense of the insured who are self-employed (my insurance was cancelled) or who work for small business. Boehner and McConnell did us a big favor with the Omnibus Bill - by pushing it through with the help of the other two, they showed their real colors, which are NO DIFFERENT from their Democratic counterparts (I also think of NH’s Kelly Ayotte who was inconvenienced in not being able to go the Nutcracker Saturday nite because Cruz, Sessions and Lee defended the Constitution). There is NOTHING in the bill for conservatives, they fully funded Obamacare for another year, and they just don’t give a damn about the people who elected them or a single one of the positions they lied about when they ran for reelection. At least there is no subterfuge in Reid, Pelosi or Warren - what you see and hear is what you get. With Boehner and McConnell, what you hear is certainly not what you get; at least with Boehner it may be his obvious overindulgence with alcohol.
This was the leftist’s goal all along.
The details of the coverage and cost increases were designed to drive the population out of getting their insurance via business and/or private insurance plans and into the nationalized health program.
It’s working as designed so you have to give Mr. Gruber credit for obtaining what he and the other leftists wanted.
They'll also get to see up front the new costs associated with their choice
of supporting Democrats, or friends and Co-workers who do. Much like instead
of withholding taxes, make them write a check each week, or month for those taxes.
A reality check for many.
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