In addition to all the other “joys” you’ve been reading about Obamacare and its Three Stooges rollout, here’s this from a local guy. His family business has always provided great benefits despite employing just six people (and some of them part time).
He writes:
1. I have always provided employee healthcare. Always.
2. Currently, we have a high deductible, health savings plan that in addition to paying 75% of the premiums, we fund a good chunk of money into their savings account each month. It works. Our employees like it. They have saved up money over the years. They don’t have health care stress.
3. Passing of Obamacare. Rates climb much higher. Fed support small business with “tax credits”, which almost offset the higher premiums so we can continue offering what we always have.
4. 2014. Obamacare comes “alive”. But not really. They have removed the tax credits unless you buy your business plans through the “SHOP” health care exchange (setup for businesses). Problem is that no product exists for [our county] or any other county in WA except Clark and Cowlitz. Only one insurer would play in their exchange so of course it’s those big bad private insurance companies that are screwing it up. Forget that we wanted to keep what we had!!!
5. What to do… 1. Keep current plan, pay the higher premiums caused by a system we never wanted and forego the “make it taste good” koolaid called tax credits, or 2. buy an imaginary product with koolaid attached, or last option – drop everyone and we are now wards of the state to get our plans from those fine exchanges setup for individuals who didn’t have healthcare. Love it.
Blog away. If you need clarification let me know. I suspect some IRS rule will come through to avoid the obvious you can’t give one tax payer a credit and deny me because I live in x county lawsuits, but eventually, this is where we are heading….We just have to be patient for them to make it work. LOL f-ing joke
IMHO, the promised tax credits and personal subsidies are among the worst aspects of Obamacare. They’re designed to make everybody who receives them dependent on government (as in, “We can’t go back to completely private health care! How would we afford it without government help?”). So when the Frankenstein monster of Obamacare doesn’t “work” we’ll be primed for single-payer.
But the Catch-22 this poor family company is caught in is … typical. For now.
Democracy will fix it. Turns out that lots of people are against Obamacare and instead favor the Affordable Care Act…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-01/america-today-obamacare-vs-affordable-care-act
I am a family practice doctor who does not take any insurance or other 3rd party payment such as Medicaid or Medicare. Patients pay my low fees themselves. Now I am told that I need to buy a health “insurance” policy that would cover health care for my wife and I with other doctors, who do take health insurance. I provide our care, but I will be penalized for not getting coverage for care from other doctors. What a deal!
Our rates for our individual, private insurance have doubled. It’s made the situation not about principles anymore, but mortgage and groceries. I can’t afford to stay off of these exchanges and anyone who is moderately well-off now has to pay that double rate to cover my subsidies so that my kid can get semi-reasonable coverage. What happens when all those filthy rich scumbags have been taxed right out of their tax bracket? Does the government think it can magically pay for everything? (I mean, they’re doing such a good job at that, lately…)
It might be a better plan if it were sustainable. All I can do is sigh and try to work the system.
Well, if my workplace is any clue-the twentysomethings-the ones I understand are supposed to fund the thing-aren’t signing up. The only “affordable” part is that the fine is cheaper than the insurance(at least for some), for now, anyway( I understand the fine for not having insurance increases every year, until it exceeds premium costs). This mess is quickly going from SNAFU to TARFU, and finally to FUBAR.
Take the gov $$ subsidy if you need to. Yes I know it’s taken by theft and force and all, but when u or a kid come down with cancer or get badly, seriously, expensively injured you’ll be glad u r covered. That’s real life not WWLS do style noodling. This view won’t be popular here but it’s an option. Work the system.
Both Reid and Coburn have agreed that Obamacare is designed to fail http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/harry-reid-and-tom-coburn-agree-obamacare-was-designed-fail-pave-way-single-payer_745908.html#
As to the ethics of taking what you can get from the government, I’m with KenK. The funny money will just go to someone who has no scruples if you don’t. I’ve often advised the same thing to people with concerns about taking the benefits of affirmative action. Once the person gets the job and works as hard as they can, they are helping the employer make the numbers look better and therefore lessen a problem that the government has forced on them. Or, if they get the job without that advantage, then telling the employer about their eligibility still helps the employer.
NB: In looking up TARFU, I found BOHICA, which I had forgotten about. A long time ago in the service, during a lecture the speaker wrote five acronyms on the board. I wish I had written them down, but one not listed in these comments was FUBB, for “beyond belief.”
Shel — Great (if also horrible) find. I’m surprised to hear supporters admit that Obamacare is just the “camel’s nose under the tent.”
KenK — I agree that there are times when it’s okay to take a subsidy. My concern is that millions of people who previously didn’t see themselves as government dependents will in the future support even greater fed involvement in medicine because they’ll perceive that care is too expensive if left to the market. “Hey, the government helped us buy insurance because it was so expensive. Then those damned, greedy insurance companies made it even more expensive, so to hell with it; I want the government to take it over completely!” For the good of the people and all …
Assuming for the moment that I’d be eligible to accept this ‘subsidy’ – perhaps I’d be unwilling to submit the information that proves I’d be eligible for it. Any information submitted will persist in databases that are NOT benign and are insecure.
This also applies to businesses that ‘turn their employees over’ to the exchanges – that’s exactly the case – whether the employee wishes it or not.
I hate to sound so dramatic, but there is a whirlwind to be reaped from all this – and it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people.
[Work the system.]
The problem with working the system, is that at the same time you are working it, it is working you. Pretty soon you are just another whore, indistinguishable from anybody else.
Companies insuring workers never made any sense to me (other than as a response to a bad tax law). What do you have in common healthwise, with the others working in the same company? Not a heck of a lot! Insurance makes sense only when the pool you belong to encourages correct, non-risky behavior. There has to be some fiscal feedback in the system.
I prefer the old free market method, that was practiced when this country was on the upswing, and not a rotting empire: Hire whomever, pay him cash at the end of the week, let him take care of his own needs out of that. If he works out, keep him; otherwise, fire him. Strangely, “easy to fire” implies “easy to hire” too. People tend to forget that. Maybe they think the big bad corporations sent all their jobs to China, rather than the govt. (I realize there is some connection between the two, bit still…)
I read an interesting book a while back about John Browning and his father Jonathan. It was amazing how people thought and acted in those days. What confidence! Nothing kept them down for long even though most of them could not be considered well off. What was wrong doing things that way? Being “taken care of” by government bureaucrats, it disgusts me.
I never had any employees as it never made any sense to me. My wife has had plenty and I keep asking her, “Why?” I suspect she has a masochistic tendency. The general public seems to buy the line that employers can be continually imposed on, and will just put up with it. This is silly. The whole point of being well off is that you have options. One of the options you have, is to not put up with the BS any more. When entrepreneurs stop playing Hank Rearden and stop propping up the parasites, only then will this house of cards fall – if the crashing dollar does not do the job first.
BTW you don’t have to take this subsidy, or any other subsidy. There is a choice, even if the bureaucrats deny there is.
In 1973 a fun hobby turned into a small business. Never got as far as a business” license” or any of that crap, but it just grew and grew until I needed to hire some help. I had a willing helper, but I had a big hunch that paying her “under the table” was not going to work out well at some point. So, I investigated the “legal” requirements. I’d have to go to the city, hat in hand, and beg for permission to conduct my business (license, inspections, etc.), get involved with the state and federal tax predators, and increase my prices more than double to break even – if I was “allowed” to continue at all, of course.
Sold the inventory and shut it down permanently. I wasn’t going to get involved with all that for any reason. And that was forty years ago!! Can’t imagine why or how anyone opens or keeps a small business today.