Obamacare Meets Reality. Reality Wins.

[Geee]

Red State:

What Obamacare has done is create a series of perverse incentives that encourage businesses to stop providing health insurance. As a business you have the choice of providing a rather gaudy health care plan to your employees or paying a tax. I say gaudy because the the basic requirements of the package, providing enough birth control pills to satisfy Sandra Fluke’s appetites, for instance, adds cost on to the plan. Contrary to what a lot of people seem to believe the health care plan provided by your employer is not YOUR health plan, it is your employer’s.

So by paying a tax, a business can avoid the human resources head ache of managing a health plan and reduce costs. What option do you think many businesses will choose.

But wait there is more.

An employer only has to provide a health plan for full time employees. There is no penalty for not providing health coverage to part-time workers. And there are no penalties if you employ fewer than 50 persons (by person I mean full-time equivalents: if you have part time workers and your average number of hours worked exceed 50 x 120 (4 weeks x 30hr/week). You can read more on the nuances of calculating what is a full time equivalent worker courtesy of RedState member jayp.

Faced with the prospect of paying as much as $40,000/year some employers are reducing both full time positions and total number of employees.

Companies as diverse as Papa John’s, St Jude’s Hospital, and Murray Energy have all announced layoffs that are linked to Obamacare.