ACA Employer Mandate hurts low wage workers

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Surprising honestly ....

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute (left wing groups) released a report examining the effects of repealing
the ACA employer mandate or moving ahead.

Their findings:
- Employers with 50 or more workers not offering health coverage are most likely employing low wage workers
- These employers will pay billions in penalties to the federal government for not offering health coverage
- These penalties will mean less pay for their low wage workers (i.e., the employers will pay them less to offset the penalties)

Thus, the penalties are an effective federal tax on low wage workers who don't even get employer healthcare coverage.

Proposed Solution:
- Eliminate the employer mandate or utterly overhaul it (which they note would result in slightly higher people without health coverage)



Depicted: 'Burger Flipper Job'

source, http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/09/study ... z31P9W0Cke

Daily Caller.com lel

By the way, you'd have to be crazy to think that corporations "can't afford" to comply with the mandate and continue giving their employees whatever meager wages and hours they get. Whenever you hear "I can't afford it," it can usually be translated as "I can't afford to comply and keep my seven-figure salary, my constant bonuses, and my briber...lobbying budget!"

There's also a flip side....

For many companies, it'd be easier to pay the penalty than deal with the costs of trying to comply with the ACA by offering insurance that meets ACA standards.

I will agree on one point: expecting low margin businesses to provide expensive healthcare is a little silly, however: Only idiots cannot avoid the individual mandate OR have businesses that are actually profitable and thus able to absorb or displace the cost of healthcare. The argument about the individual and employeer mandate can also be made about payroll, sales, and other taxes that overwhelmingly effect the poor: it's nothing new.

That said only the most idiotic or inflexible companies will be unable to avoid the requirement or fines.

What exactly is an employee, anyways? That 16y.o. flipping burgers? No, he's now an independent contractor and is responsible for his own insurance. And that McDonald's franchise will soon be the independent mcdonalds23000 corporation with only 30 employees, across the st is the mcdonalds23001 Co.

The trend of divesting employees and re-branding them as independent contractors or "temps" has been going on for 30 years and will most likely be exacerbated by the ACA, but I find it unlikely corporations will actually be paying the fine or providing insurance.

I don't agree with much of the ACA and agree that it may hurt those it was meant to help, but the sections of the law covering pre-existing condition protections (like autism) are too valuable to favor decimating the entire law for. You may not realize but as an autistic person (I'm assuming here), before this law, you would have been ineligible for insurance. This means that care would be almost entirely unavailable to you.

Hospitals do not treat non-emergency maladies without pay. They are only required to stabilize and release, and there is no penalty for providing insufficient care. I.e. if you go in bleeding and they slap some gauze and a 5,000$ bill on it and have security drag you back outside and you bleed out, not their problem.

While in the grand political arena the ACA is up for debate, within the autism community it should not be. For those with limited ability to work, it gives access to medical care. For those with the ability to work the specialized, long hour'd, technical jobs aspies so often drawn to, employers will now be compelled to provide coverage. It prevents the horrors that happened to my brother growing up with insurance companies dropping our entire family because my 3Y.O. brother's autism was an undisclosed "pre-existing condition." This happened 5 times each with different insurance companies before we got coverage under the Chicago BOE's health plan (which didn't cover autism related costs until 2004 when state law changed to force them to).

False.

IC vs. Employee is defined by how much control the "client" has over the daily operation of the "contractor." I've been an IC in situations where it's obvious I'm an employee, but the arrangement was MY choice, and we just hoped nobody scrutinized it. McDonalds could never meet the IC test to get away with doing it. Most places ABUSING the IC status really have to walk a careful line to not run afoul of the rules.



The idea is that it is CHEAPER for them to just pay the fine rather than try and provide insurance that qualifies. I suppose, in time, the ACA nightmare might get debugged enough that employers can go after the insurance carrier providing the coverage IF it proves to not be ACA-complaint (and incurring penalties on the business owner).



There were better ways to address this issue than what the ACA does. Nobody said there weren't problems to be fixed, but the ACA is not the solution we needed.



Disagree. I now have coverage, but no job. How do I pay what the policy I have does not cover? I'm just as subject to financial ruin, and I equally debate if I should go see a doctor based on my ability to pay my portion of the bill. It's only a benefit should I have to go to the ER with a severe illness or injury...so that at least I'd not be treated as someone with no insurance, but then again, my coverage is with a company I've heard little about, and I have a very short list of health care providers...as compared to when I was paying for my own policy before the ACA kicked in.

Quoted: "The penalty for any applicable month is 1/12th x $2,000 x (total number of full-time employees minus 30)".

A company with say 100 employees would pay: 1/12 * 2000 * (100-30) = $11, 666 / month penalty for all 100 employees

(11, 666 / 100 ) * 12 = $1, 399 penalty per year /per employee for a 100 employee company

Quoted: "Providing health coverage costs an average of $9,300 annually per employee according to TriNet, a human resource and payroll provider, with employers picking up $6,700 of that cost each year, on average, the company says".

Some employers may prefer to pay the $1, 399 yearly penalty, than the $6,700 yearly cost for employee healthcare

However, the economic decision is even more slanted towards paying the penalty. The employer may be able to save a lot more money by not having to hire healthcare administrators and compliance workers, as well as anyone else who may be required to maintain it.

EDIT: As far as I can tell the penalty is NOT indexed to inflation, thus, making it ever-increasingly attractive.

source, http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-0 ... reform-law
source, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... h-coverage

Yes, the core point that its cheaper not to insure is quite valid. My point is that laws on the books are essentially useless because the industry will adapt to circumvent it altogether. It's not just a A/B choice of insure or penalty, there are creative options to subvert the law and nullify it even farther.

Also, I will point out the individual mandate actually makes the employer penalty less attractive. My Employer doesn't provide health benefits and the last 7 employees (in 2 months) that they have tried to add to my cilla have all quit in the first week when they found out there are no benefits. Now my employer has to try to figure out how to keep us staffed AND under 30 hrs ea with only 3 employees. Additionally 4 employees recently left due to the lack of benefits. Essentially the individual mandate makes benefit-less jobs impossible to staff, which will require the industry to adapt.

So fast food chains and Wal Mart are going to start paying less than minimum wage?

Point taken.

However, some employers may be given other forms of compensation too.

-employee discounts
-401k matching can be cut
-vacation time/sick time can be cut
-employees above minimum wage can have their pay reduced

The result of ACA is screwing workers, especially lower income workers, and small business. But hey, as least it's not the republicans doing it to them which makes it all okay.

It definitely is painful for smaller businesses that employ more than 50 full time workers (but don't offer health insurance). But all the claims of how painful it is for low wage workers is still premature. The subsidies are supposed to offset that harm, but I remain skeptical as to its overall effectiveness.

It is most harmful to very large businesses that already provide zero healthcare benefits for their employees.

It is not a great piece of legislation, but it is still slightly better than before. It could have been so much better if the Repubs would have bothered to provide even a tiny bit of input instead of throwing temper tantrums. Or if they had been trying to fix all the glaring problems with it instead of wasting everyone's time by making symbolic gestures by voting for repeal ten trillion times.

What I find most amusing about this whole thing is that the ACA is remarkably similar to the plan that the Heritage Foundation recommended back when the Clintons were trying to push for government provided healthcare. It's what Romney crafted his state's health insurance law on. But I guess if the Democrats are doing it it must be evil socialism.

What is still to be seen is what happens when the ACA start-up money is gone. Do we get the "death cycle" where premiums are raised, then more drop out, so premiums need to be raised more, so more drop out ... ?

- Hawii is dealing with it by raising the health insurance premium 12.8% in July this year on 8100 employers. [see 1 below]

- Quoted: "I do think that it's likely premium rate shocks are coming [this year]. I think they begin to make themselves at least partially known in 2015 and fully known in 2016," said Chet Burrell, chief executive officer of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield. "That will be different in different parts of the country. I don't think it will be uniformly the same." [see 2 below]

sources,
1. http://freebeacon.com/issues/8100-hawai ... obamacare/
2. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/ ... UR20140401

11% premium increases are normal. It has nothing to do with the ACA, it's just how health insurance works. 11% sounds like a lot, and it is. But, you need to compare that number to the preium increases of non-ACA years for it to be meaningful.

"Between the year 2000 and 2006, premiums in this country doubled, health insurance company profits quadrupled, and this Congress did nothing."
- so before the ACA health insurance premiums were increasing at a rate of around 12%/yr compounding. Now, however, the ACA restricts the profit margins insurers can make to 20% of total revenue. Health insurers will likely have to begin issuing dividends the same way life insurance companies do. I used to sell life insurance and an insurance "dividend" is actually a refund and essentially means "we couldn't figure out anything to spend your premiums on." So to conclude, yes the increases are insane, but it has nothing to do with the ACA, Health insurance companies are just dicks.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... ums-doubl/

The lady on the news - in the link - said they said they are raising the premiums because of the ACA. The money is being spent on the ACA.



Restricting profits may not restrict costs.

I know non-profit hospitals that put in new carpet and desks for doctors every year, because they took in too much money and need to spend it to show no profits.

*GASP* well if the lady on the news said it, it must be true!! ! I heard from a lady on the news that everything they say is fair and balanced, not politically motivated misinformation or paid advertizements misconstrued as reporting!


Why are you talking about costs? that has nothing to do with premiums!
http://www.ncsu.edu/project/calscommblo ... us_co.html

The ACA:
The efficiency of the post office, the compassion of the IRS, all at pentagon prices.