The Job-Crushing Employer Mandate

In addition to the skyrocketing premiums and higher taxes, ObamaCare’s expensive and job-crushing employer mandate is already causing headaches and frustration for business owners across the country.

Earlier today, The Wall Street Journal reported that many small business owners are opting to suffer through the costs and pay the wildly expensive penalty that is imposed if they don’t provide health insurance for their employees. And the penalty’s price tag is hefty – $2,000 per business owner for each full-time worker.

While this option originally seemed to be more of last-resort for businesses who didn’t follow the employer mandate, it’s clear now that many business owners simply cannot afford to provide insurance for their employees under the new law.

Mr. Epstein, 52, employs about 250 workers and currently provides health insurance to his 20 office personnel. If he were to start covering the 100 or so nurses and nursing assistants that work full time, his annual health-insurance costs would jump to roughly $600,000 from the current $100,000, he says.

Even if he takes the penalty option, he estimates he would have to pay about $240,000—a cost he doesn’t think his business could absorb. To compensate, he plans to cut the number of hours his nurses and nursing assistants work so they will be considered part-time under the law. He says he will hire more part-timers to ensure patients receive the same level of care.

“We’re going to do everything we can in order to stay in business,” he says.

–The Wall Street Journal, Some Businesses Opt for the Health-Care Penalty, April 8, 2013

 

Between the debilitating costs of insurance premiums under the law, and the penalty that is imposed if you can’t manage the payments, ObamaCare is a lose-lose for business owners and their ability to provide for their employees and create jobs. More jobs lost, more penalties paid…all because of ObamaCare.

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