“Just a few months ago, President Obama signed the health-care bill into law amid much fanfare. But we’re hearing a different tune from small-business owners. They’re asking: How much is this going to cost me, how can I opt out, isn’t there any way to stop this from taking effect?”
In addition to the direct costs of ObamaCare’s $500 billion in new taxes, there are also indirect costs from the new tax regulation. Section 9006 of the law puts vast new reporting requirements on businesses, forcing them to dramatically increase their administrative costs as they now have to report nearly every single business relationship.
Obamacare would condemn more low-skilled workers to the ranks of the unemployed, with part-time workers — disproportionately women — being hit the hardest.
If nothing else, ObamaCare may prove a stimulus to the paper industry, as its expansive utilization of IRS Form 1099 would force Americans to spend countless irritating and unproductive hours filling out and transmitting additional federal paperwork.
“Experts say the new regulations make holding costs down even more of a Sisyphean challenge for small businesses: If they make changes in their current plans to save money, they risk losing their grandfathered status and will be forced to comply with new mandates that are expected to increase costs.”
House Republicans created a report card for ObamaCare 90 days in, cataloguing the failing grades the bill received on issues like costs to families, job creation, and deficit reduction.
Office furniture maker Steelcase Inc. has reported a first quarter ObamaCare charge of $11.4 million. The charge results from the health-care overhaul’s removal of a tax break for providing prescription drug coverage to retirees.
A small-business owner writes that, with 16 full-time employees averaging $40,000 in annual wages, his share of the small-business tax-credit promised under ObamaCare would be … $0. But his business would become eligible for the tax-credit if he starts cutting his employees’ wages or laying them off.
Looking at the problems ObamaCare is likely to cause for the federal budget and American businesses and families, repealing it is far from impossible. Other unpopular or ill-conceived health care measures have been repealed in the recent past before their enactment. “President Barack Obama’s signatures on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act do not end the national debate on federal control of health care. The debate merely enters a new and perhaps even more difficult and divisive phase. Based on current revelations and previous experience, this continuing debate gives Congress ample justification to repeal Obamacare. At the very least, Congress can dismantle or defund its damaging provisions.”
The federal government has finalized the specific changes employers are allowed to make to their insurance plans to still remain “grandfathered” and exempt from ObamaCare’s new restrictions. Accordingly, the Internal Revenue Service, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Labor estimate that 51% of all employers will lose their “grandfathered” status because of small changes they make to their health insurance plans and be subject to the full force of ObamaCare’s coverage restrictions by 2013.