The House Dems Medical Bill

[Perchoutofwater]

 

Is going to make it hard on a lot of small businesses, or is going to cause a lot of people to take what amounts to an 8% pay cut. The House has just become a joke. We can only hope the Senate has more sense. Didn't we declare independence from England for a 10% tax on a few items claiming taxation without representation. Now we have people not paying taxes voting for people who will raise other peoples taxes to subsidize their health care. Can someone please tell me why a family making $88,000 needs their health care subsidized? This country has lost track of priorities, and the decline has started.

[i_am_the_swammi]

The only people getting an 8% haircut are those sweat-shop businesses that refuse to offer health benefits to their employees. This will help me because my premiums are thru the roof because part of what I pay goes toward offsetting the cost of caring for the uninsured/underinsured.

 

Um, Bravo?

[Perchoutofwater]

The only people getting an 8% haircut are those sweat-shop businesses that refuse to offer health benefits to their employees. This will help me because my premiums are thru the roof because part of what I pay goes toward offsetting the cost of caring for the uninsured/underinsured.

 

Um, Bravo?

 

I'm not sure. Medical care is the one area that I really sit on the fence, primarily because of what you have pointed out above. I just question if it is the employer's responsibility to provide health care coverage. The one provision you pointed out will have a very minimal impact on our company, if any. It will hurt quite a few others though, that are not currently providing insurance to their employees. I have to question the timing of this as well. Here we are in a time of historic unemployment and a recession that has been compared to the great depression and yet the House Dems want to saddle already struggling businesses with additional overhead. Of course more than likely due to the current high unemployment rate, these businesses in most cases will pass this cost on to their workers in the form of a pay cut, as the current economic climate makes it very unlikely they can successfully pass it on as an increased cost to their clients. Additionally with the average work week now reported to be 33 hours (nobody that works for me logs less than 50) I can see where this will cause unemployment to rise. Look at it this way, a company currently has 12 employees working 33 hours a week for a total of 396 man hours a week. That company is now going to cut two of those guys and will now work 10 employees working 39.6 hours a week, and come out ahead. That doesn't sound like a very good idea in this economy.

 

I'm not necessarily against health care reform depending on what form it takes. I totally understand what you are saying about those of us responsible enough to pay for insurance are currently paying for those that aren't through higher premiums, that is something I've been saying for years. I do have a fairly major problem subsidizing medical care for families making up to $88,000, because there is no way around it, all we are doing there is subsidizing someone else's bad decisions.

 

My biggest problem with this, is the timing and the effect it is going to have on the economy . It will increase unemployment. It will increase small business failures. I'm a firm believer that had we passed a real stimulus plan, half the size o the one that congress passed, that was actually directed at stimulus, and not pet projects, and had congress and the president came out and said we are not going to consider any legislation that is going to increase the tax burden on individuals or business until unemployment is below 6.5%, that we would already be well on the way to recovery. The problem we have now, is we know we have to pay for the stimulus package somehow, but we don't know how it is going to affect our individual or business taxes yet. We know if cap and trade is passed it is going to significantly increase the cost of doing business, as well as household costs. Really it is just another type of tax, regardless of what some people may want us to believe. We don't know how much Cap and Trade will cost us as individuals or as businesses. Add on top of that medical reform legislation that appears as though it will definitely affect businesses, through increasing their overhead, as well as increasing the tax burden of the business owners. What all this means is those of us that own businesses, even if we see sound fundamentals in our markets are scared to death to spend capital to increase our production or to hire more people, because right now we don't know how much these three major pieces of legislation are going to increase our business's overhead, or how much they are going to increase our tax burden. So, really even if we wanted to expand, with so many uncertainties it would be stupid to do so, because while we look at our current overhead and tax burden and know we can afford it today, we don't have any idea if we will be able to afford it a year from now, because we don't know what the government is going to do to us in it's current quest for redistribution.

 

This might be great legislation if if were in the middle of a boom with almost full employment, and it wasn't bunched in with the additional uncertainty of the cost of the "stimulus" bill and the cost of cap and trade. Right now this is a horrible bill that is going to cause a lot more damage than good.

Edited July 15, 2009 by Perchoutofwater

[Ursa Majoris]

I just question if it is the employer's responsibility to provide health care coverage.

Long post but this is right on the money. This whole deal started post-war when companies were restricted on wages so looked around for other ways of attracting employees. It's since grown into a monster, tying health care to employment and acting as a hugh anchor on companies, IMO - see GM for proof.

 

This knot needs to be completely cut - companies have no business being involved in their employees health care.

[Perchoutofwater]

Long post but this is right on the money. This whole deal started post-war when companies were restricted on wages so looked around for other ways of attracting employees. It's since grown into a monster, tying health care to employment and acting as a hugh anchor on companies, IMO - see GM for proof.

 

This knot needs to be completely cut - companies have no business being involved in their employees health care.

 

I'm so glad too see you finally admit that it was government interference in the free market that caused all of this mess.

[dmarc117]

charts

 

http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/House-D...Health-Plan.pdf

[Perchoutofwater]

charts

 

http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/House-D...Health-Plan.pdf

 

That looks extremely efficient. Here is an idea, rather than tax the crap out of everyone, why not just make people pay for their own health care. Surely they can do it more efficiently than this. Sure, they might have to give up some luxuries like I-phones, PS3's and 22" wheels, but maybe it is time we make people responsible for their own decisions, and stop bailing them out.

[Ursa Majoris]

I'm so glad too see you finally admit that it was government interference in the free market that caused all of this mess.

It was 65 years ago and it's true that a government restriction set it off at least in part. That said, this bond needs to be broken. Unpredictable costs like health care (at least to self-insured companies) should be anathema to businesses.