“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.'”
“Medical device maker Stryker Corp said it will cut 5 percent, or about 1000 jobs to largely offset costs related to the scheduled implementation of the new Medical Device Excise Tax in 2013.”
“The 2010 healthcare law contains a tax on the health insurance policies that most small businesses purchase… Estimates predict the tax will raise the cost of employer-sponsored insurance by 2% – 3%, imposing a cumulative cost of nearly $5,000 per family by 2020. The NFIB Research Foundation’s BSIM model suggests that such price increases will reduce private sector employment by 125,000 to 249,000 jobs in 2021, with 59 percent of those losses falling on small business.”
“President Obama’s health care law requires employers to offer health benefits to full-time employees. This employer mandate will price many unskilled workers out of full-time employment. After paying the new health premiums, the minimum wage, payroll taxes, and unemployment insurance taxes, hiring a full-time worker will cost employers at least $10.03 per hour. Full-time workers with family health plans will cost $13.75 per hour. Employers who hire workers with productivity below these rates will lose money. Businesses employing less skilled workers will probably respond by dumping their employees onto the federally subsidized health care exchanges and replacing full-time positions with part-time jobs.”
“Staffing firms urged Congress Thursday to repeal the healthcare law’s requirement that employers provide insurance for their workers — even as they continue working with federal regulators to tweak the law.”
“The uninsured truly in need of help are those with household incomes below $25,000. They represent roughly a third of the uninsured, or 16.1 million.
Now, 16 million uninsured is nothing to sneeze at. But they represent only 5% of the American population. Finding coverage for them doesn’t require remaking one-sixth of the U.S. economy, as ObamaCare does. Many of these 16 million people are already eligible for public insurance, chiefly Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. They just haven’t signed up.”
“One provision of the new healthcare law is a 2.3% excise tax on the medical device industry which will take effect in 2013. This study estimates the potential effect of the device tax on employment in the medical device industry. The study finds that the tax could reduce employment in the industry by cutting back on the demand for medical devices and by encouraging American firms to shift production overseas.”
“The best thing that Congress can do to unleash jobs creation is to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The law is discouraging businesses from hiring. According to a recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey, 39 percent of small business owners say the law is either their greatest or second-greatest obstacle to new hiring.
The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Dennis Lockhart, says that ‘prominent’ among the obstacles to hiring is the ‘lack of clarity about the cost implications’ of the legislation.”
“In the early months of 2010, the economy was starting to show signs of life after the recession. Then Congress passed the president’s health-overhaul law. Debate over the ObamaCare law’s potential impact on hiring and the economy has been fierce from the start. The president promised it would be a boon to both; then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the law would create 400,000 jobs ‘almost immediately.’ Others argued the law would make businesses much less likely to hire new workers. That debate should now be over.”
“Is employer-sponsored health insurance on life support? A new survey shows that one out of every 10 midsized and large companies say they’ll stop offering health insurance once federal insurance exchanges kick off in 2014, according to the survey, which was conducted by consulting firm Tower Watson.”