The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee’s “Affordable Health Choices Act” contains an “employer mandate,” or a legal requirement that all American businesses with 25 or more employees offer health insurance to their workers.
The penalty for failing to comply with this mandate to offer employees health insurance is a $750 fine per full time worker per year.
In 2008, employer-provided insurance policies averaged $4,704 a year for individuals and $12,680 for families, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (p. 2 here). This means employers would be able to save $4,000 per worker (or $12,000 per family) by ending their employee health benefit programs and simply paying the federal government the fine.
Source: Senate HELP Committee bill fact sheet, pp. 7-8.
But He told us ...
get2djnow Tuesday, August 11th at 11:17AM EDT (link)that the public option would never cause people to lose their insurance, if they like what they have now. /sarc
An employer would have to be nuts to throw money into an insurance policy for his employees when the gov’t is willing to do all the work of covering employees’ medical needs for a measly $750. Not only that but no more open enrollment hassles and no more annual increases in employee copays. For the employers it’s all upside.
In memory of A1C Elizabeth N. Jacobson
Unions Windfall
itdiehard Tuesday, August 11th at 11:23AM EDT (link)Unions will use this savings to boast wages by 6G per worker…
Windfall to the unions.
get2djnow Wednesday, August 12th at 9:57AM EDT (link)The union bosses will increase union dues by 5k. Then the unions will use the money to prop up their corrupt athletic supporters in local, state and federal government. Still, they will be able to tell their mouth-breathers that brought home the bacon.
Oh, the bosses will also be able to afford new union jets.
In memory of A1C Elizabeth N. Jacobson
It is about a permanent funding mechanism for the Democrat party.
izoneguy Tuesday, August 11th at 11:30AM EDT (link)Obamacare would create a huge bureaucracy that would be staffed with SEIU members (most government workers are SEIU members). SEIU would collect a windfall in new union dues which would be fed back into Democrat politician’s campaign coffers.
It is about a permanent funding mechanism for the Democrat party.
Look at this info from Open Secrets….
These dems have raked in the most cash from union contributions.
Hoyer tops the list with $3,596,358
Edward Kennedy is 2nd with $2,741,591
Pelosi is 3rd with $2,737,550
Unions Lobby to Thwart Health Care Deal Breaker
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/07/unions-lobby-to-thwart-health.html
Download a list of contributions from labor PACs to all current members of Congress (including to their candidate committees and leadership PACs) since 1989 here:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/LaborPAC_Contribs.xls
If you use this info give credit:
http://www.opensecrets.org/MyOS/credit.php
Just counter Pelosi and Hoyer un-American accusations with these facts. National Health Care is a Union Trojan Horse…..
“When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
Thomas Jefferson
I support ending employer based
DerKrieger Tuesday, August 11th at 12:46PM EDT (link)…health care.
But only if it means my employer pays me the cash value of my insurance coverage as additional salary and then asks me to go buy my own insurance.
I wish businesses would fight back on this even a little instead of looking at this as an easy way to offload their health care expenses.
They can offload them and still nurture free market solutions like high deductible, low premium plans with HSAs. I have one and I love it.
“In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” - Thomas Jefferson
“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence (OBAMACARE – mine), the money of their constituents.” – James Madison
Exactly
Jeff Emanuel Tuesday, August 11th at 2:00PM EDT (link)Few understand that benefits like health care aren’t paid for by the employer, but come out of overall compensation in lieu of wages. The fact that few workers know this means employers who cut off health care can keep that savings, because workers don’t know enough to demand that cash be added to their paychecks.
Education is needed in this area.
JE
I can't fault your logic.
whoframedrudy Wednesday, August 26th at 2:03AM EDT (link)Currently, an employer that does not provide health benefits is at a competitive disadvantage in the labor market. Not so under Obamacare. So yes, with a public option and this negligible fine, the ‘private option’ will wither on the vine of profit maximization. In the private sector, this would be called ‘predatory pricing.’
It’s perverse: using capitalism to transition into socialism.
You’re gonna need more than one lesson. And you’re gonna get more than one lesson.