The most insidious part of Obamacare is the backdoor taxes, and defacto control of our healthcare by the nanny state that President Obama’s plan is loaded with. And here is another one that is not getting much play. Employers would be socked with requirements to pay for 72.5 percent of the cost of insurance premiums for their full-time employees under the plan being considered in the House.
They would also be required to pick up an as yet undetermined percentage of the insurance plans for part-time employees, as well. This alone will insure that part-time jobs across the nation are terminated for the destructive cost involved in having them.
Or, conversely, many full-time jobs will be eliminated if the costs of insurance is so steep and that of part-timers less so. Either way, jobs will be lost because of these new, never before seen expenses.
According to the draft legislation in the House, businesses would be required to pay the federal government a fine of 8 percent of their payroll if they do not offer a basic insurance package to their employees. The House bill has yet to determine how large a small business must be before they are forced into this requirement.
Let’s think about what this means, though. This new mandatory expenditure will greatly drive up the costs of business for small and medium sized businesses and force many of them to close up shop. They will not be able to compete with the larger corporations that will have the resources to offer insurance plans even for part-time workers.
This means the permanent elimination of mom-and-pop business nationwide and the proliferation of large, corporate held shops of all sorts. From the corner market and small book store to the local garage and sandwich shop, small businesses will be hounded out of business by overweening government mandates. This will naturally open the business to even more national chains of all sorts.
It seems to me that the self-same people that claim they want nationalized healthcare are the same sort that decry the giants like WalMart. But here they are pushing an idea that will give them more WalMats from sea to shining sea!
Seems a bit illogical of them, doesn’t it?
WalMart has signed on to mandatory health insurance
Achance Thursday, July 2nd at 9:38AM EDT (link)for employees, or at least so it was reported yesterday. The big companies WILL NOT oppose this so long as their competitors don’t get a better deal. Likewise, there is little organized business opposition to EFCA and for the same reason; WalMart will happily support mandatory unionization so long as Target is subject to it as well. Add to the competitive situation the fact that most both do a lot of business with government and are heavily regulated by government, so if they don’t toe the line, the government can retaliate against them and do so with impunity. Don’t like Comrade Obama’s plans? Well, lets see if some visits from the nice people at OSHA, Wage and Hour, and EPA will change your mind.
This is the real problem with these big retailers and other national chains; they are terrible citizens of the communities in which they locate and of the Country generally. I’m not a WalMart basher, shop there, but I really don’t like what the National chains have done to American communities. The family that owned a dry goods or hardware store lived in a community and was interested in the welfare of that community. The manager of the WalMart is just doing time and trying to make numbers so he can get promoted to the next bigger town or higher volumn store and generally couldn’t care less about the community except as company policy requires him to make some show of involvement.
In Vino Veritas
They will sign on so long as everyone plays by the same rules but
char Thursday, July 2nd at 11:06AM EDT (link)the path to profitability will run through layoffs. Expect Wal-Mart (and Target) to let tens of thousands of people go. There is too much of a profit motive to keep all the employees around so you can expect unemployment to go up a good bit. And the people let go will basically never get a job again because they lack the skills that would justify their cost.
The real job-killer will be the interest arbitration
Achance Thursday, July 2nd at 11:32AM EDT (link)mandated by EFCA. Dramatic inflation is inevitable in the next decade. EFCA mandates resolution of contract formation disputes through binding arbitration. Those arbitration awards will ramp up wages to offset the effect of inflation. Employers will respond by reducing their workforce. Unions will respond by seeking job security guarantees. Employers will resist job security demands but will have a very limited ability to resist because of government pressure, even intimidation, and because of the fact that in Democrat administrations, the National Labor Relations Board and Federal Mediation and Concilliation Service are simply branch offices of the big unions. So, wages go up, workforces remain in place, prices go up, business and profits go down. Companies can bankrupt their way out because of union and government pressure. The goverment takes over the company. The cycle is endless until something causes a complete collapse and a revolution results or some sort of authoritarian oligarchy from the Right side of the political spectrum seizes power. See, e.g., the German Wiemar Republic where this was already played out. In ‘28 - 30, Germany seemed likely to join the Soviet Union as a communist controlled state. The NSDAP joined forces with the business community in opposition to the communists and by ‘33 Hitler was chancellor and the communists were brutally suppressed.
In Vino Veritas
Achance
mom2oneson Thursday, July 2nd at 11:43AM EDT (link)Thanks for explaining about abritration and the effects to us. It’s a whole ‘nother world!
Thanks, Mom2, here's a more detailed piece
Achance Thursday, July 2nd at 12:06PM EDT (link)on EFCA a wrote a few months back: http://www.redstate.com/achance/2009/03/03/the-worst-part-of-card-check-arbitration-long/
In Vino Veritas
A story I read said WM favors ObamaCare
bk Thursday, July 2nd at 11:09AM EDT (link)because it would hurt Target more than it would hurt WM.
Unemployment is a direct result of the fear of Obamacare
izoneguy Thursday, July 2nd at 11:18AM EDT (link)Companies are shedding their workforces in large number because of the fear of Obamacare. God forbid Obamacare actually passes. You could unemployment surge to 20-30%. And this is what Obama wants. A fearful populace where the “employer” is viewed as the villan.
“When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
Thomas Jefferson
5 izoneguy
mom2oneson Thursday, July 2nd at 11:29AM EDT (link)and they are going to reintroduce stuff so nobody can be an IC anymore.
8% penalty a deal
Thomas_Hauber Thursday, July 2nd at 11:39AM EDT (link)My family owns a small manufacturing company in California. If the Feds put out a health care plan with an 8% penalty on payroll for not offering insurance, we would drop our current health insurance plan and gladly pay the penalty. An 8% penalty would on payroll would save us money.
Taken to it logical conclusion, every small company would drop their private plans and go on the Federal dole. Presto! Single payer system.
Brilliant - and terriffying
jerseymike Thursday, July 2nd at 11:56AM EDT (link)You have it exactly right, the cost to pay the penalty will be less than the cost to offer coverage to your employees. You also won’t get any complaints from the employees that you are screwing them out of coverage becuase they have the public option right there for them.
This is a brilliant, but terrifying stratgey by Obama and them Dems to drive huge numbers of people into the public option and eventually you will have exactly what you said — single payer.
It’s scary, but I must admit, it’s brilliant.
jerseymike - and I do mean the state not the article of clothing
8% penalty - how do you know that is what it would really be?
izoneguy Thursday, July 2nd at 12:06PM EDT (link)8% penalty - how do you know that is what it would really be?
So let’s say that is what Obama puts out there. DO you believe anything the Fed says? I would not trust that figure as gospel.
They could and would jack it up to anything they want.
This is why employeers are nervous. They don’t trust the government or what they say. The employeers strategy right now is to shead overhead and expenses. Like the plane that is going down so you lighten the load.
A single payer national health care system will ruin America. Period.
“When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
Thomas Jefferson
I think you made one mistake: "...won't get any complaints..."
The_Gadfly Thursday, July 2nd at 12:24PM EDT (link)This I think is the actual Achilles heel of Obamacare. If employers made it obvious that the financial incentives were too great to not drop their current insurance plans and put people into the government plan, I doubt you’d get 25% of the House voting for the bill after all the screaming was done.
Mark Levin has been on a bender about this for several weeks now. I think the figure he gives is that 80% of Americans are happy with their current health care plan. But they all think too many OTHER people are getting shafted on their plans, so the government needs to do something. Make it obvious that THEY are going to lose their health care plan (maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even within the next two years, but by the end of the decade almost certainly) and no politician who can read a poll will support Obamacare.
We’ve been called racists enough now that it shouldn’t bother us any more.
-AChance, http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2009/11/03/what-men-may-do-we-have-done/#comment-24463
If NY23 was a beat down for Conservatives, what do you call what happened to Progressives in NJ and VA?
inspired by ColdWarrior, http://www.redstate.com/hooah_mac/2009/11/04/ny-23-the-agony-of-defeat-not-so-much/#comment-156
As the mom and pop stores disappear,
The_Rebel Thursday, July 2nd at 1:30PM EDT (link)the unions will be the chief beneficiary as their rolls will increase with each failed mom and pop store. Most of the unions, other than the trade unions, are connected to major corporations. As these corporations pick up the slack from the mom and pops, the power of their unions can only increase. This is all in the Obamascare calculations.