The Federal government was given broad discretion to implement regulations limiting the profits of insurance companies by regulating their “medical loss ratio,” but a board of state insurance regulators missed a key deadline to provide guidance to HHS which could delay implementation and cause uncertainty for insurers and businesses.
“The President repeatedly promised that if you liked your health plan, you would be able to keep it. Nothing would change. Fat chance.”
The administration’s inability to meet several ObamaCare deadlines, including a deadline for simply publishing a list of its own new authorities under the overhaul, does not inspire confidence in its capacity to manage a sixth of the economy.
The Senate health care bill (which, along with the Reconciliation Act, became law) would overhaul the entire health-care sector of the U.S. economy by erecting massive federal controls over private health insurance; dictating the content of insurance benefit-packages and the usage of medical treatments, procedures, and devices; altering the relationship between the federal government and the states; transferring massive regulatory power to the federal government; and restricting Americans’ personal and economic freedom by imposing unprecedented mandates on businesses and individuals, including an individual mandate to buy insurance.
House passage of the Senate version of ObamaCare means higher health costs, higher deficits, higher taxes, higher premiums, incentives for employers to drop employees’ insurance, incentives for employers to avoid hiring low-income workers, financial penalties for entering into marriage, further expansion of Medicaid and the launching of a new entitlement program, and the ushering in of a culture of statism and dependency in lieu of limited government and liberty.
The Obama administration Monday unveiled a tax cut for small companies that provide health insurance, but business groups gave it a mixed review: Many small businesses won’t qualify for the tax credit, they say.
According to a new study, ObamaCare provides disincentives for businesses to hire new workers and provides incentives to invest in capital rather than in labor — since, for example, hiring a 25th worker would cost a business $5,600, in addition to wages and benefits.
Amidst all of the various mandates and costs that ObamaCare would impose on small businesses, the administration claims that the overhauls’ small-business tax credit would be a great benefit for companies with less than 25 employees and average wages under $50,000 — but the reality is that the tax credit would shrink sharply once a company gets above just 10 workers or $25,000 in average annual wages.