An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
ObamaCare…The Giant Job Killer!
It’s quite apparent to me…a lowly hausfrau in Podunk…that neither Obama, nor his minions in Congress, and around the country, who support this piece of…um….legislation have any clue how businesses, or the economy works. NOT A CLUE!
It’s really quite simple, yet the left doesn’t seem capable of grasping the concept. Let’s take the minimum wage for example. I know I’ve covered this before, but it’s a little more simple to grasp than the ObamaCare fiasco, and I’ll try to explain this in simple terms so the liberals can understand it, ok?
The government raises the minimum wage. The employees getting said ‘raise’ think wow…”now I can afford to move to a bigger apartment, buy a new car”…whatever. Um…no…ya can’t. Because when the wage goes up, the prices of everything goes up, because other businesses, who are forced to increase the pay of their entry level employees, have to raise their prices in order to still make a profit. In many cases, businesses will cut their workforce, leaving perhaps one or two of their employees now on the unemployment line. What has that rise in minimum wage gained you? Nothing. Not a damn thing. You can’t afford that new car, or whatever, because you are paying higher prices for everything, not to mention there are more people out of work, and living on either unemployment, or ending up on welfare and food stamps, which you are also paying for out of you ‘raise’. Nope…nothing has been gained.
The same applies to ObamaCare. People are going to lose their jobs, and prices are going to increase in order for the businesses to comply with the vast number of new rules and regulations. How is anyone going to gain from this? They aren’t. No one will win. Oh, the ‘it makes me feel good’ socialists will see it as a victory….for a while, until reality sets in, and their job (if they have one) is eliminated so the business can pay the forced ‘premiums’.
Let’s put it this way…. My insurance premiums were already high. Gosh…I had the audacity to actually USE it! When ObamaCare came into play, the annual premium increased by 50%! That’s five zero percent! It’s a catastrophic policy. NO doctor visits, NO eye exams, NO dental. Just regular medical issues that require surgery, or hospitalization, and mostly, no tests. Oh, they do cough up a few bucks on prescriptions….AFTER I’ve met my out of pocket. Well, getting a bill for $15,000 can really make ya question someone’s sanity…including your own! I already had a high deductible, but in order to bring the premiums down to something ALMOST manageable, I had to double it. My out of pocket also doubled. This is not a policy through any job…this is totally self pay. We aren’t poor, but we aren’t rich either. Having to pay MORE for everything is quickly moving us into the ‘we might not be able to afford to keep our house’ category.
Yep…this ObamaCare is very personal. It’s going to kill jobs. It’s going to wipe out the savings that us older retired folks depend on for just living day to day. Barack Hussein Obama has destroyed the economy. He’s working very hard to destroy the country. To allow him to continue, and succeed in his goals, is insanity.
‘Pizza Tax’ Only a Hint of Obamacare’s Costs
The Foundry
Papa John’s Pizza founder John Schnatter spurred new outrage over Obamacare when he said recently that the law will hike pizza prices. But his business isn’t the only one that will have to pass its new costs on to consumers—or cut back, which will mean even fewer jobs.
At least 60 percent of firms are estimating Obamacare will raise their health care costs, according to a new study released Wednesday by Mercer, a human resources consulting firm. One-third of those expect a cost increase of 5 percent or more. The study reports:
The employers that will be hit hardest are those with large part-time populations—employers in retail and hospitality services. Nearly half of these employers (46%) expect PPACA will push up cost by at least 3% in 2014—and another third don’t yet know what the impact will be.
A full third of the businesses can’t even estimate Obamacare’s impact yet—because so many of the law’s rules have yet to be written by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). And a number of its main provisions don’t go into effect until 2014.
The impact of this outlook—staring down cost increases mixed with the uncertainty of more government mandates and costly regulations to come—falls heavily on the economy.
Obamacare requires all businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to provide health coverage for their workers or pay a $2,000 penalty for each employee after the first 30 workers. Some businesses have expressed that they are likely to avoid hiring so they don’t go over the 50-worker threshold for mandated coverage; also, they are likely to cut workers’ hours so that they don’t qualify as full-time to avoid the penalty.
This is especially tough for restaurants, which provide lots of jobs for low-income workers. The Wall Street Journal reported that “McDonald’s Corp. Chief Financial Officer Peter Bensen said in an earnings call two weeks ago that each restaurant will incur between $10,000 and $30,000 in added annual costs because of provisions in the law.”
The restaurant group that owns Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., CKE Restaurants, will face the choice between expansion—creating new jobs—and tightening its belt to deal with Obamacare, its CEO lamented. Andy Puzder, CEO of CKE Restaurants, said:
The money to comply with the [Affordable Care Act] must come from somewhere. We use our revenue to pay our bills and expenses, to pay down our debt, and we reinvest what’s left in our business. That’s how we create jobs. There’s no corporate pot of gold we can go to, to cover increased health care costs. New unit construction will cease if we have to allocate moneys for that construction to the ACA. And building new restaurants is how we create jobs.
Of course, as costs increase on businesses, more will likely decide to drop health coverage for their workers altogether. Surveys have indicated that anywhere from 11 million to 35 million Americans will lose the health insurance they have through their jobs.
Yet this is part of Obamacare’s design. House minority leader and Obamacare advocate Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) said that “the way we see it is an innovative prevention-oriented way for businesses to be emancipated from health care costs because they have a way out or whatever works for them.”
Once businesses are “emancipated from health care costs,” their employees will be going to government to get coverage. As more people are dependent on government for their health care, the cost burden simply shifts to taxpayers.
Pelosi describes this as businesses’ “way out.” But the effects are harmful to job creators, workers, taxpayers, and consumers. There is no way out except repeal of Obamacare.
