The unintended consequences of ObamaCare

[Dr. Chuckles]

Ther's a difference between dismissing something and not believing it.

well, dismiss means to discard or reject, and I would say simply going "I don't believe it" would fit under such ...

 

[Grim17]

Congrats redress... You got it buried just as you wanted and just as I predicted.

Feel better now?

You can go back to your worship of the Messiah and pretent that report never existed.

 

[Redress]

Congrats redress... You got it buried just as you wanted and just as I predicted.

Feel better now?

You can go back to your worship of the Messiah and pretent that report never existed.

I do not have a messiah. Why must you make things up?

 

[sangha]

well, dismiss means to discard or reject, and I would say simply going "I don't believe it" would fit under such ...

Not believing <> discarding it.

It doesn't mean accepting it either

One can remain somewhere in the middle, as in "I'll reserve judgement until the facts become clear"

 

[DDD]

I think that: a) deciding to deliver such "qualitative" foods to the consumers' health expense and b) deciding to protest against Obama Care health insurance is a double attack from fast food suppliers towards average American normal health. They first put high fat fast foods and protest against those that could work against such malnutrition for the bettering of the health of American people such as Obama Care. A double hit. I mean how wrong they could be.

 

[Mycroft]

I find it amusing that, even though many businesses are already altering their employment practices in preparation to Obamacare, the best any liberal can come up with is "the affects of Obamacare are speculation".

Now...think about that for a moment, eh? Obamacare has been the law for over 2 years and STILL nobody really knows what it's effects on our economy will be?

That's got to be THE most screwed up law our country has ever dreamed up.

I think the notion of unintended consequences is the least of our problems when we don't even know what the intended consequences are.

 

[StringBean]

"unintended" ??

 

[cpwill]

Nobody knows for sure whether it will significantly raise the cost of fully employing people. That is speculative at this point.

Really?

CBO Confirms ObamaCare Increasing Health Care Costs to Families, Businesses, States

CBO: Obamacare to cost 800,000 jobs

Yeah, it's speculative in the sense that "it hasn't happened yet". But it's not exactly like we can't see the mechanics here, nor like we don't know how they interact. You raise the price of labor, you lower demand for it. So yeah, it's "speculative". Sort of in the sense that it's "speculative" that if you lift a pencil off your desk and let go, it will drop back to the desk. Gravity might not happen, after all.

 

[code1211]

What report? It is just a couple partisan talking heads offering partisan opinions and a handful of anecdotes. Zero actual studies or anything approaching actual facts.

You don't need a whole bunch of examples to know this will be costly for both employers and for individuals.

The key thing to know is that the cost of a plan for a Senior can be only 3 times the cost of a plan for a younger person. This is French for saying that the plan for a younger person must be no less than 1/3 the cost of that for a Senior.

The way any group plan works is that the costs are spread around so that the healthy who don't use the services pay the same as the sick who do use the services. Think of an open bar at the wedding. Some will drink until they throw up in the punch bowl and others will sip a glass of water and leave early. The Caterer, if the cost is quoted up front, will average the cost across the total guests and the water sipper and the visiting frat brother will all be allocated the same average.

Since the people cited in the FOX story were mostly from Fast Food places where the young are the majority of the employed, these costs will hit the group that will make the lowest use and still pay an unsustainable share.

It's going to be a neat trick for them to pay their "fair share", the mandate, on the income of a part timer.

 

[code1211]

If I offered up a video of a bunch of people talking about how great Obamacare is, you would rightly attack the source. That is what I did here. The video did not present any studies or facts, just opinions and anecdotes. Dispute that....

I couldn't find the link you promised.

 

[code1211]

What is the CEo of Whole Foods bitching bout?

Benefits for US Team Members | Whole Foods Market

He seemed to be complaining about the government control.

 

[code1211]

Why are you claiming people are saying something they are not?

You're right. What the story relayed was that the number of employees would go up, but the hours worked per employee would go down.

So, as an example, instead of having 10 cashiers at a grocery store, there would be 20 self checkout lanes and one overseer. Fewer people to guide you to the place on the shelf where your cleaner is and so on.

Auto dealerships would have a thriving internet presence and few floor people doing the sales thing.

Restaurants would specialize in particular meals instead of operating 24 hours, maybe opening and closing various times during the day.

There are a variety of ways to get this done. The government is comprised of remotely situated and remotely concerned idiots who see everything only from their own little bunker. They exist to continue to exist and we suffer under their yoke to try to continue to live and prosper as they sally forth blindly, carelessly and savagely.

Everything the government touches turns to poop and then they try to mold the poop so it's pretty enough to get them a job with the other failures who have cycled into the private sector for a time to return to the bureaucracy later.

If you think they care about you, you've not been watching closely.

 

[code1211]

Nobody knows for sure whether it will significantly raise the cost of fully employing people. That is speculative at this point.

If the cost is added where no cost existed before, the speculation sounds to be pretty accurate.

 

[code1211]

So where does the $1.79 figure come from as cited in the "report"

Back when i was involved in making my budgets for my departments, we assumed the cost of benefits to be about 30%.

If the minimum is about 7.25 now, the 30% figure would be $2.17.

 

[code1211]

Probably because Romneycare was subsidized by the federal government moreso than the private payrolls.

Obamacare will be subsidized by the next group of generations who are voting for this swindler and will be saddled with the debt they are encouraging.

They are digging their own graves.

 

[code1211]

Companies have been switching from full-time employees to part-time employees for many years now.

The difference here is that the switch in the past was from 40 to less than 40 and now it's from more than 30 to less than 30.

 

[code1211]

I'm not dismissing the discussion, simply stating the obvious. Nobody knows what will happen. The assumption by some on the right is that it would be easier to just reduce the hours of employees, but it is far more likely that businesses would reduce the number of employees if costs did increase. There is also an assumption by those on the right that all this is occurring in a vacuum and is not affected by any other factors, such as a potential decrease in overall health care costs by the influx of more people with insurance or a desire by many companies to offer full time employment in order to attract the best employees.

The fact that nobody knows what will happen is what disturbs me the most about this whole abortion.

It was poorly conceived, poorly planned, poorly explained and will be the basis of endless law suits for decades.

 

[ttwtt78640]

If I offered up a video of a bunch of people talking about how great Obamacare is, you would rightly attack the source. That is what I did here. The video did not present any studies or facts, just opinions and anecdotes. Dispute that....

It offered one "fact" that changing your workforce from part-time to full-time added $1.79 per hour costs in mandated PPACA benefits; care to address that? Another fact, not even mentioned in the video, is that an individual going from making 133% of the poverty wage to 134% makes their "fair share" of PPACA exchange premiums increase 50% (from 2% of AGI to 3% of AGI). Thus getting a small pay increase will result in less take home pay for no added benefit at all. In any law tossed together in a hurry, of such a complex nature that it must be "phased in" over 5-9 years, that had many waivers granted (some to entire states) and required thousands of pages of regulations and with several new agencies/committees/panels to "adjust it" is bound to have major "side affects" on the users and providers alike. Calling this mess affordable care, when its main affect is to raise/shift costs was very dishonest.

 

[CriticalThought]

The fact that nobody knows what will happen is what disturbs me the most about this whole abortion.

It was poorly conceived, poorly planned, poorly explained and will be the basis of endless law suits for decades.

That was going to happen no matter how they reformed health care. And they were going to have to do it...sooner or later. You can't change the rules of the game for something this bag and know exactly how it is all going to work out. And given that we have divided government, and have since 2008, there is no way we would have been able to incrementally change it like most people would have liked. It had to be done in one major push or not at all. A lot of people who were happy with how things were would have opted for "not at all" but that simply was not viable solution.

 

[CriticalThought]

If the cost is added where no cost existed before, the speculation sounds to be pretty accurate.

Only if the price and competition remains consistent, which is unlikely. There are more factors at play here that people are not accounting for in their speculations.

 

[CriticalThought]

Really?

CBO Confirms ObamaCare Increasing Health Care Costs to Families, Businesses, States

CBO: Obamacare to cost 800,000 jobs

Yeah, it's speculative in the sense that "it hasn't happened yet". But it's not exactly like we can't see the mechanics here, nor like we don't know how they interact. You raise the price of labor, you lower demand for it. So yeah, it's "speculative". Sort of in the sense that it's "speculative" that if you lift a pencil off your desk and let go, it will drop back to the desk. Gravity might not happen, after all.

Oh come now. After months of hearing how the CBO is wrong about all the positive things ObamaCare will allegedly bring, I'm supposed to believe what it says about all the alleged negative things it will bring?

I get kind of tired of the cherry picking.

 

[Mycroft]

That was going to happen no matter how they reformed health care. And they were going to have to do it...sooner or later. You can't change the rules of the game for something this bag and know exactly how it is all going to work out. And given that we have divided government, and have since 2008, there is no way we would have been able to incrementally change it like most people would have liked. It had to be done in one major push or not at all. A lot of people who were happy with how things were would have opted for "not at all" but that simply was not viable solution.

Why not?

Most of our problems with the costs of healthcare are a result of:

1. Government influence in the health care market. (mandates on insurance coverage, medicare, medicaid, etc.)

2. Poor consumer choices. (reliance on government, disregarding the costs of their health care because of their insurance coverage, etc.)

If we drastically reduce the government interference, the consumer will be forced to make smart choices in respect to their health care. Let's face it...health care is like any other commodity and is bound by the rules of supply and demand. Screw with those rules (ie, government interference) and you screw with market forces and the result is what we have now.

Nothing good will ever result from Obamacare.

 

[washunut]

Back when i was involved in making my budgets for my departments, we assumed the cost of benefits to be about 30%.

If the minimum is about 7.25 now, the 30% figure would be $2.17.

Benefits include many things. Payroll taxes, insurance, potentially days off. They are also an average. So as many of these costs are fixed ( and payroll taxes regressive) the higher the wage of the average employee the percent goes down.

 

[washunut]

Why not?

Most of our problems with the costs of healthcare are a result of:

1. Government influence in the health care market. (mandates on insurance coverage, medicare, medicaid, etc.)

2. Poor consumer choices. (reliance on government, disregarding the costs of their health care because of their insurance coverage, etc.)

If we drastically reduce the government interference, the consumer will be forced to make smart choices in respect to their health care. Let's face it...health care is like any other commodity and is bound by the rules of supply and demand. Screw with those rules (ie, government interference) and you screw with market forces and the result is what we have now.

Nothing good will ever result from Obamacare.

Conversely, if we did not employer paid health care but moved to a single payer system this would shift the burden from good companies that provide health care to a more general population. ACA failed because it did not honestly address the problem and because of that will fail either because costs will explode and become unaffordable or their will be more holes in it than swiss cheese. All of these waivers are just a start. Then you will have states down the road drowning Medicade costs. The alleged savings, which are largely based on paying doctors and hospitals less is a fraud as each year they will implement a "doc fix" like they just did in January.

If Obama wants to be thought of as an FDR than he has to act like one. Passing BS trasitional legislation that will not stand the test of time is a meaningless fraud on his starry eyed supporters.

 

[Mycroft]

Conversely, if we did not employer paid health care but moved to a single payer system this would shift the burden from good companies that provide health care to a more general population. ACA failed because it did not honestly address the problem and because of that will fail either because costs will explode and become unaffordable or their will be more holes in it than swiss cheese. All of these waivers are just a start. Then you will have states down the road drowning Medicade costs. The alleged savings, which are largely based on paying doctors and hospitals less is a fraud as each year they will implement a "doc fix" like they just did in January.

If Obama wants to be thought of as an FDR than he has to act like one. Passing BS trasitional legislation that will not stand the test of time is a meaningless fraud on his starry eyed supporters.

Single payer is not the answer either because that takes all choice...and responsibility...away from the consumer. In effect, single payer is taking the current government interference in a commodity market to the ultimate.

Expect ultimate failure.