ObamaCare And Business

I hope Zero Hedge will excuse me for republishing this post. This is what the American economy has to look forward to. Except it is happening now.

SNAP (mentioned below) is Food Stamps.

From a Zero Hedge reader:

My company, based in California, employs 600. We used to insure about 250 of our employees. The rest opted out. The company paid 50% of their premiums for about $750,000/yr.

Under obamacare, none can opt out without penalty, and the rates are double or triple, depending upon the plan. Our 750k for 250 employees is going to $2 million per year for 600 employees.

By mandate, we have to pay 91.5% of the premium or more up from the 50% we used to pay.

Our employees share of the premium goes from $7/week for the cheapest plan to $30/week. 95% of my employees were on that plan. Remember, we used to pay 50% now we pay 91.5% and the premiums still go up that much!!

The cheapest plan now has a deductible of $6350! Before it was $150. Employees making $9 to $10/hr, have to pay $30/wk and have a $6350 deductible!!! What!!!!

They can’t afford that to be sure. Obamacare will kill their propensity to seek medical care. More money for less care? How does that help them?

Here is the craziest part. Employees who qualify for mediCAL (the California version of Medicare), which is most of my employees, will automatically be enrolled in the Federal SNAP program. They cannot opt out. They cannot decline. They will be automatically enrolled in the Federal food stamp program based upon their level of Obamacare qualification. Remember, these people work full time, living in a small town in California. They are not seeking assistance. It all seems like a joke. How can this be the new system?

Pelosi, pass the bill to find out what’s in it? Surprise! You’ve annihilated the working class.

There will be a recession from this. Or a revolt.


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21 responses to “ObamaCare And Business”

  1. Randy Avatar
    Randy

    Just…. damn.

    The Pelosi statement about passing the bill to find out what is in it is all you need to know about the care and thought Democrats like her put into crafting (if you can call it that) this legislation. Many Democrats seem to live in a fantasy world where decrees from on high always work without any bad consequences. They seem willfully ignorant about real world economic consequence IMO.

  2. captain* arizona Avatar
    captain* arizona

    You conservatives deserve what your going to get! Ted cruz on cnn said he wants to do away with obama care and when asked what he would replace it with for million uninsured children in his state said nothing thats not the job of the federal government! In 2009 democrats tried to get medicare for all but republicans filibustered it! Any problem you have with obama care you brought on yourself and you deserve it!

  3. JB Avatar
    JB

    Capt. Arizona

    Can you think for yourself?

  4. Al Avatar
    Al

    Don’t be to hard on him, just another sad cultist.

  5. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    You conservatives deserve what your going to get!

    I know I’m going to regret this, but here goes.

    First, captain*Arizona, you are addressing libertarians as conservatives. By doing this you show ignorance and lose any hope of winning an argument. And second, this subject isn’t about partisan politics except to the extent the Democrat Party makes it that.

    Let me give you the benefit of the doubt, and guess (a wild guess I’m sure) that you are not a liberal troll. You don’t show enough spite and vindictiveness in your posts for it. Then what would draw you here? Perhaps you find somewhat of a home because the site is gay friendly, has articles attacking police thuggery, is staunchly against drug prohibition and in the process points out how it targets minorities especially African Americans, and you are yourself African American. The subject you seem to zero in on is Obamacare. Are you disabled and forced to rely on government aid, and is this the reason you advocate universal government run health care? And finally, you are probably younger than 50 and therefore have no memory of a time when the federal government wasn’t involved in health care. You don’t seem hateful, but remind me of the character, the Wet Nurse, in Atlas Shrugged.

    Imagine, captain*Arizona, the time before Kennedy got the federal government into the health care business. Since you weren’t there, I’ll give you a brief rundown.

    There were thousands of non-profit hospitals run totally without government aid, built from private donations by Catholic and Presbyterian charities . The Masonic Order built Shriners Hospitals for children. The National Jewish Hospitals are well known. You need to read about them:
    http://www.nationaljewish.org/about/whynjh/history/

    Even for-profit hospitals provided services at discount to the poor. In California and I assume most states, there were county hospitals and clinics that were available as a last resort. My father who was a general practice/family doctor donated time at the county hospital. When he died my mother found a drawer filled with unpaid bills for people he had treated. Like most doctors, he took his oath very seriously and wouldn’t dream of demanding payment from those who couldn’t afford to pay.

    Lest you think that the care was inferior for the indigent, it was not. Every specialist in the county was expected to donate their special skill at the county hospital, if needed. It is true that overall medical care did not match what we now take for granted. Hospitals had wards. Only the well off could afford a private room. Special care was bought, as it is now for people wanting elective cosmetic surgery.

    The private system wasn’t perfect. But it brought out the best in humanity – because it wasn’t achieved through force. Do you understand the difference between a voluntary action and one made through coercion? Trying to force doctors to become employees of the state, at the point of a gun, is no better than slavery. Is that what you want?

  6. RickC Avatar
    RickC

    @Randy My brother and I got in a debate over the question of when we knew that the U.S. had jumped the shark. He argued that the moment was the second election of Obama. I thought it was when the Speaker of the House, the person third in line for the most powerful political position in the world, could stand up in front of the American people, spout that foolishness about a piece of legislation which would have major impacts on the economy, healthcare and society in general and not be immediately laughed out of government. Swiftian.

  7. […] Simon, who says: “There will be a recession from this. Or a revolt.” There will certainly be […]

  8. […] ObamaCare And Business […]

  9. alanstorm Avatar
    alanstorm

    “The private system wasn’t perfect.”

    Prior to 0-care, we didn’t have a private system. We had a system which was built on markets severely distorted by state and federal regulation.

    That being said, we still had the majority insured, and overall happy with their coverage. Now? Apparently, it’s some kind of improvement to substitute more control and less actual care at higher cost.

    I’m not sure how replacing an imperfect system with one even more imperfect is a step up.

  10. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    @alanstorm –
    I was referring to ancient history, the 1950’s & before Medicare. What you say about our current system pre-Obamacare is true. Local medical care at the county level is gone. Most hospitals receive such a large amount of funding through Medicaid & Medicare that they are no long really independent. Obamacare is going to make it much worse. Doctors are retiring by the thousands & it is not being reported.

  11. captain* arizona Avatar
    captain* arizona

    Frank@ Wrong not african american not gay not under 50 not disabled and I am a capitalist wage slave master I own my own business! I do remember before medicare when the very few charity hospitals were overwelmed and lines reached to the street and down the sidewalk for the county hospital! One time a police officer was wounded in the emergency room of county hospital and police called an ambulence to take him to a ral hospital! At the time the county hospital was desertified but desperate people went their anyway! At a private hospital a very pregnant black woman came in to have a baby and was told that was non emergency and she would have to go to county hospital 10 miles down the road she left and ended up having her baby in the parking lot! I am a libertarian with a social conscience and I know the differnce between libertarians and conservative tea baggers! untill recently the republican party was driving most libertarians out of the gop and you still must support social conservative views or trying going to a republican event with a sign pro-choice pro gay marrige pro non censorship and see what happens!

  12. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    Ah ha! crapAZ, you outed yourself. Good. The county hospitals started going downhill after Medicare and were destroyed with Medicaid. You know the reason. Unequal care was to be abolished by the federal gov so that the stigma of going to a charity hospital would be avoided.

    You are not any kind of libertarian that I have heard of. You want socialized medicine even though you call it Medicare for all.

    Social conscience my ass. You advocate force. Ever heard of the prime libertarian code of never initiating force? You sound about as libertarian as Andrew Sullivan and just as disingenuous.

    Bug off faker.

  13. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    Like I said, I should have known better. Just another liberal troll. Jeez!

  14. captain* arizona Avatar
    captain* arizona

    Wrong again this was before medicade I was young but I remember ! Arizona was the only state that refused medicade look it up!

  15. captain* arizona Avatar
    captain* arizona

    The county hospital wasn’t free after republicans got in you got a bill just like a regular hospital even if you were a homeless woman sleeping in your car with your children I know this from persoel experiance!

  16. Simon Avatar

    crap,

    It is good you have a social conscience. How exactly do you square that with making others do your good deeds at the point of a gun?

    What exactly is good about that?

    And suppose some evil mothers get control of the guns unlike some nice feller like you? And suppose they turn the guns on you? Or on some one who can’t fight back.

    I do admit the GOP is no good. Unlike you I’m not convinced that the Ds are any better. So I make my alliances on a case by case basis.

  17. c andrew Avatar
    c andrew

    Pelosi, pass the bill to find out what’s in it? Surprise! You’ve annihilated the working class.

    Well, not really a surprise. The destruction of the middle class is the whole point of the progressive exercise.

    The middle class historically preferred independence to gov’t sponsored dependency. Look how FDR had to hide Social Security behind disability to get the votes to pass it.

    The rich figure that they will always have an entre to power. The poor are increasingly locked into their lower quintile by the onerous effects of gov’t policy and devolving culture; eg., minimum wage laws, drug policy, educational incompetence (and a black cultural distaste for education as “acting white”), general barriers to entry for self-employment, black embrace of the gangsta culture, broken families, the list goes on and on.

    The middle class was once a bulwark against the rising tide of gov’t usurpation by virtue of asserting their independence; but by insidious means of first taking their income and then offering something inferior back as a ‘free’ gov’t service, gov’t actors undermined their autonomy. Now the gov’t has taken the next step – naked extortion. If you don’t sign up for our inferior brand of insurance – which does not actually translate into “health care” – we’ll take even more of your money and hold you hostage by not allowing you to make your own private medical insurance arrangements. Sign up with us – or have no recourse.

    The rich, the politically connected and their ilk are not going to be faced with this choice. The poor have already succumbed. Thus, the point of Obamacare was to further strip the autonomy of the middle class in regard to medical decisions. (Further strip because the quasi-fascist system that preceded Obamacare was no great prize itself.)

    The ultimate end of the Progressive project is best summed up by Trotsky railing against Stalin (although Trotsky had no problem with his methods, based on Trotsky’s prior conduct, just his choice of targets);

    The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced with a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.

  18. captain* arizona Avatar
    captain* arizona

    I don’t care about your prime libertarian bullcrap. Who sez? ayn rand who denounced medicare and when she got sick took it because she couldn’t afford private health insurance and the insurance companys that she stooged for couldn’t care less about her! Police and army carry guns to modify peoples behavior it is called negative reinforcement technique! Maybe you think we shouldn’t have police or army to protect you?

  19. c andrew Avatar
    c andrew

    To call the above a non sequitur would be to unduly elevate its quality.

  20. Simon Avatar

    Police and army carry guns to modify peoples behavior it is called negative reinforcement technique! Maybe you think we shouldn’t have police or army to protect you?

    Do you recognize how hilarious you are?

    And no doubt you like being Served the Drug War.

    =========

    c andrew – I apologize for feeding the crapzona. Sometimes I just lose all self control. LULZ.

  21. c andrew Avatar
    c andrew

    I understand, Simon. I’ve done so on occasion and feel guilty afterwards. Because I KNOW my time is worth more than that. But a strange compulsion . . .