…Until Obamacare implodes. As Democratic Senator Max Baucus said, a train-wreck looms ahead. Daniel Kessler’s recent article in the Wall Street Journal concisely explains who will be burdened with higher insurance premiums and how Obamacare is in NO WAY a jobs program. Employers proceed to cut employees’ hours to avoid unaffordable health insurance benefits mandated under the Affordable Care Act:
Bureau of Labor Statistics reports on a category of workers who will almost surely be involuntarily underemployed as a result of health reform: the 10 million part-timers who now work 30-34 hours per week.
These workers are particularly vulnerable. Reducing their hours to 29 avoids the employer tax penalty, with relatively little disruption to the workplace. Fewer than one million of them, according to calculations based on the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, get covered by ObamaCare-compliant insurance from their employer.
In total, it appears that there will be 30 million to 40 million people damaged in some fashion by the Affordable Care Act—more than one in 10 Americans. When that reality becomes clearer, the law is going to start losing its friends in the media, who are inclined to support the president and his initiatives. We’ll hear about innocent victims who saw their premiums skyrocket, who were barred from seeing their usual doctor, who had their hours cut or lost their insurance entirely—all thanks to the faceless bureaucracy administering a federal law.
