“The Obama administration’s controversial birth-control mandate saw its first legal challenge Thursday from an employer not affiliated with any religious institution. The latest challenge comes from the owner of a Missouri-based holding company, who says it violates his religious freedom. Although several other suits have been filed, they have all come from religious-affiliated employers such as Catholic universities.”
“Finally, it’s not just people who consider contraception sinful that oppose this mandate. That’s because the mandate also violates the freedom of those who have non-religious reasons for not wanting to purchase contraceptives, who would rather pay for contraceptives out of pocket, or who want such coverage now but might change their minds in the future.”
On Tuesday, January 31st, e21 held an event exploring the implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), which was sold to the American people with the promise that “If you like what you have, you can keep it.” New academic research is clearly disproving this claim. The health law provides strong incentives for employers to move their sick and low-wage workers out of job-based plans and into publicly subsidized coverage. The result will be soaring costs for taxpayers, and millions of people losing the coverage they have today.
The event featured a presentation by Professor Daniel Schwarcz of the University of Minnesota Law School, a speech by Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), and commentary from James C. Capretta.
Read Prof. Schwarcz’s paper, “Will Employers Undermine Health Care Reform by Dumping Sick Employees?” here.
Event video:
“If you’ve never heard of the law’s medical loss ratio (MLR) provision, you’re certainly not alone. This simple calculation has had the effect of radically reducing what health insurance agents earn. That, in turn as greatly restricted their ability to help million of Americans navigate the maze of approvals needed for medical procedures and processing claims. It has also had a devastating effect on these agents’ businesses and is disrupting the insurance market.”
“Yet another provision of ObamaCare has been found unworkable… Now it turns out the much-vaunted tax credit for small employers is also a bomb. At a recent (November 15, 2011) hearing of the Ways and Means Committee, the Treasury Department’s Inspector General J. Russell George reported that as of mid-October 2011 only 309,000 taxpayers had claimed the credit, for a total payout of $416 million — far below the 4.4 million the IRS thought would be eligible or the CBO estimate of $2 billion that would be paid out in 2010 alone.”
“President Obama says his health care ‘reform’ will be good for business.
Business has learned the truth.
Three successful businessmen explained to me how Obamacare is a reason that unemployment stays high. Its length and complexity make businessmen wary of expanding.”
“The Indoor Tanning Association, an industry group, claims that 14 percent of tanning salons in Minnesota have gone out of business since 2009, a decline from 477 to 419. The group blames the additional burden of a 10 percent tax placed on salons starting July 1, 2010, as part of the health care reform law. The industry continues to press Congress for repeal, saying women-owned businesses are being disproportionately affected and that the tax is being unfairly applied because many health clubs don’t have to pay.”
“A small business health insurer broker testified today that Obamacare’s Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) regulations has cut his revenues, forced many of his competitors out of business, and may end the small business insurance broker industry entirely… Obamacare is regulating these small businesses out of existence by defining the commission they earn in as administrative overhead the purpose of calculating an insurance companies MLR. Obamacare mandates that insurers in the individual and small group market must spend 80% of their premium dollars on medical costs, not overhead.”
“In an economic climate of increasing uncertainties, Puzder says, one certainty is that many businesses now marginally profitable will disappear when Obamacare causes that margin to disappear. A second certainty is that ’employers everywhere will be looking to reduce labor content in their business models as Obamacare makes employees unambiguously more expensive.'”
“The healthcare reform law could threaten farmers’ insurance coverage, a group of Senate Democrats said. The law could undermine farmers’ cooperatives, which provide coverage for thousands of farmers and their families. That threat is an ‘unintended, and unwanted’ side effect of the law’s tax credits, Democrats said.”