Obamacare Employer Mandate Delayed Until After Congressional Elections 600
theodp writes "If you hoped your employer would finally provide health insurance in 2014, take two aspirin and call your doctor in the morning — the morning of January 1st, 2015. The Obama administration will delay a crucial provision of its signature health-care law until 2015, giving businesses an extra year to comply with a requirement that they provide their workers with insurance. The government will postpone enforcement of the so-called employer mandate until 2015, after the congressional elections, the administration said Tuesday. Under the provision, companies with 50 or more workers face a fine of as much as $3,000 per employee if they don't offer affordable insurance."
Re:Oh, look! Just what the economy needs! (Score:5, Informative)
Not sure where the uncertainty is. Says right there - January 1, 2015.
Not that having the elections matter about implementation. Obama isn't going to let a veto go through, and even if the Senate flips, there's going to be no way that there's enough votes to override a veto. Obamacare is here, get used to it.
Re:But the rest of us are still screwed (Score:3, Informative)
It has been pretty well established that your smoking neighbor has lower lifetime healthcare costs than someone who is healthy. They tend not to live long enough to get the really expensive things to treat.
Re:Oh, look! Just what the economy needs! (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe they did realize that during this tough economic time (that will probably go on forever since we only consume and don't actually produce anything) it might be a bad thing to force businesses to offer health insurance that is rapidly rising..
Our company only employees 22 people and we provide health insurance that costs us somewhere in the neighborhood of 75k/year.. Having gone up about 20% since obama care passed.
$3400 a person for health care is pretty f'ing cheap. Most employers spend 8,000 to 10,000 per employee (not including what the employee contributes out of their salary).
Re:So, is this delay legal? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So, is this delay legal? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Oh, look! Just what the economy needs! (Score:5, Informative)
Having gone up about 20% since obama care passed.
And how much did it go up in the years before obamacare was passed?
Sounds like we were seeing double-digit inflation in health care insurance costs most years in the decade prior to obamacare's passage.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2009-09-15-insurance-costs_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip [usatoday.com]
Seems like the rate of inflation in health care insurance is slowing to a historically low level of 4.5%:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2013/07/02/5-easy-ways-to-reduce-your-health-care-costs/ [foxbusiness.com]
YMMV, but nationwide the trend is getting better not worse.
Re:So, is this delay legal? (Score:2, Informative)
"many states had great health care plans for low income people, but had to close them down "
Nope.
" I love it when people conveniently ignore the facts..."
I love it when people make up new ones for themselves...
Re:Employers already know the loophole (Score:2, Informative)
For some it's a much steeper cut than that. I have friends in retail who are losing hours. One got knocked from 40 to 25. Several others in his store also took the same cuts. Very few people got to keep their full time positions, and some of the salaried people (managers) are now expected to pick up some of the slack until they maybe, maybe hire new help. (They'll have to hire some but it's uncertain if they'll replace all of the lost manpower.)
It's despicable, and I'd like to say that I'm stunned that our lawmakers have so little foresight that they didn't anticipate this but not only does it not surprise me, I'm willing to believe this is an intentional effect.
Re:So, is this delay legal? (Score:3, Informative)
Senator John Chafee wrote it in 1993. He was a Republican.
Re:Oh, look! Just what the economy needs! (Score:5, Informative)
5 painful health-care lessons from Massachusetts [cnn.com] - June 16, 2010
Massachusetts struggles to rein in health care costs [patriotledger.com] - Apr 30, 2011
It’s a serious problem: Massachusetts boasts that 98 percent of its residents have health insurance, but the state is stricken by the highest health care costs in the country.
Danger ahead? Massachusetts health costs are rising – fast. [washingtonpost.com] - February 9, 2013
Massachusetts health care costs out of control as ObamaCare provision hits small business [bizjournals.com] - Mar 4, 2013
Re:Oh, look! Just what the economy needs! (Score:2, Informative)
The problem is that the people wanted socialized medicine and we got an insurance scam.
No, "the people" didn't want socialized medicine. That is why the bill didn't come close to that, in the first place.
The real problem is that healthcare costs too much in the first place. You can't just insurance that away. What we really need is for the federal government to tell the whole crooked industry, "Just one more $2 ahh stick or $8 tylenol and we nationalize the whole damned thing!".
Using price controls to set the price below economic costs has a predicable outcome. You aren't just paying for the $.01 or less of wood in the stick, or the pill. You are also paying for facilities cost, utilities, staff, and likely part of the time of the nurse that might fetch it, as well as the doctor. And don't leave out the cost to treat people in the emergency room that don't pay.
Socialized medicine isn't a panacea. The total healthcare budget is then in government hands, competing for money along with welfare and roads, defense and deforestation. Just a couple of stories, plenty more to see if you look.
NHS starves 1,165 to death [express.co.uk]
Don't leave patients in ambulances to hit A&E targets, hospitals told [telegraph.co.uk]
Re:Fucking politicians... (Score:5, Informative)
its the most wonderful 'business men'. you know, the 'job creators'. all hail the job creators
I'm not sure why you mock. It is precisely unemployment fears that have driven this decision. Job creation is something that human employers do, and that's the only source of jobs. There is no job fairy.
Small businesses usually have employee compensation as their dominant cost. "Making payroll" is by far the chief worry of small business owners. If you raise the cost per employee, the number of employees per small business must fall. In a robust and growing economy you can get away with that - heck if things have been good for a while even small employers likely have some slack to pay workers a bit more. But when the economy has sucked for the past 5 years, there's just no slack to work with.
Re:Oh, look! Just what the economy needs! (Score:4, Informative)
It's a good thing that no other country has tried anything similar with their health care. The costs would be astronomical.
Right?
No other country has tried to do something similar to Obamacare. Obamacare does not address any of the actual causes of the ever rising health care costs in the US, it just adds more people to the existing bloated system. It also increases regulations that will probably get rid of many low cost individual health plans, thus increasing costs even more (although quality of care will also increase).
The things that help other countries keep their costs down, such as better malpractice laws, lower salaries for doctors and nurses, subsidized research paid for by US healthcare consumers, etc. are not addressed in any meaningful way.
Re:Only Hillary can save Obamacare (Score:4, Informative)
The silver lining of the Supreme Court ruling, is that Obamacare is legally a tax. Mitch McConnell realized that taxes can be altered, or eliminated, in the budget reconciliation process. If the Republicans can get total control, even by slim majorities, Obamacare will die. Hillary Clinton is the best hope of keeping Obamacare alive.
More likely they will get rid of the employer mandate while retaining the individual mandate. The wealthy already have health care they can afford, so the individual mandate has little or no negative impact on them.
Re:Fucking politicians... (Score:4, Informative)
Uhh, ok dude.