Small Businesses ‘Getting Crushed’ By ObamaCare Costs

Political Pistachio – by JASmius

And remember, folks: Two thirds of Democrat voters think ObamaCare is a “half-measure” that doesn’t go nearly far enough:

ObamaCare has been a boon to the nation’s insurance companies….

You know, like how United Health Care, the largest private carrier in the country, lost three quarters of a BILLION dollars last year.  Some “boon”.  

….but small businesses are “getting crushed” by soaring health costs tied to the controversial law, a leading U.S. health policy and insurance consultant says.

Russ Carpel, CEO of the healthcare consultant company Level Funded Health, tells Newsmax TV’s Newsmax Now that the [Una]ffordable Care Act has driven up insurance costs for employers dramatically since its passage in 2010 — expenditures that are hitting small businesses particularly hard.

Something it couldn’t not do, given that everybody is forced to buy vastly more coverage than they need and are given no option or incentive to economize.

“What we’re seeing is health insurance premiums skyrocket anywhere from 20% to 200% year over year on these traditional small group health insurance coverage plans that these small businesses are in today,” says Carpel, whose company was created to help businesses navigate new benefits mandated under ObamaCare….

200% means a tripling of health insurance premiums, incidentally.  Every year.  None dare wonder why almost a hundred million Americans have been driven out of the workforce altogether, and few of those that remain have essentially no employer-provided coverage at all.

Under ObamaCare, companies that employ fifty or more full-time workers must provide health benefits that meet higher standards than were required before the law’s passage or pay a $2,000-per-worker fine to the IRS.

Which is a powerful incentive for companies with fewer than fifty employees to not make any more hires.  Thefine “tax” would start at a floor of a hundred grand.  How many of whatever number of small businesses still survive in the Obamaconomy have that much cash sitting around unused?

As a result of the new rules, many companies that provide health benefits have faced higher health insurance costs and passed those premium increases along to their workers. By some estimates, hundreds of other U.S. companies have cut health benefits, reduced worker hours, and eliminated coverage for part-timers, worker spouses, and retirees to cope with the law’s employer mandate.

Not because ANY of them are “greedy” or “mean” or “cruel,’ etc., but because they have to make a profit to stay in business and they don’t get to print up more money to replace the cash ObamaCare premiums are costing them.

And that doesn’t even get into the whole issue of third-party payment, originating all the way back in World War II, that has itself contributed to much to the upward spiral of healthcare costs over the past seventy years, long before ObamaCare egregiously exacerbated it.

Carpel tells Newsmax Now that 83% of some 2,500 businesses Level Funded Health recently polled said they find it challenging to offer competitive health benefits.

“I would say the number one reason is healthcare cost skyrocketing — and therefore health insurance cost skyrocketing — but what the [U]CA has really failed to accomplish is to get healthcare cost under control,” he says.

And that’s because the UCA was never designed or intended to “get healthcare costs under control,” but to blow them sky-high and bankrupt the private health nsurance market in order to generate an even bigger “healthcare crisis” to stampede the country into single-payer.

The economic destruction it has wreaked is simply a fortuitous side-benefit to the Obama economic agenda – and one more victimizing reason why, given that my entire career was spent working for small businesses (under fifty employees), I remain hopelessly exiled from the privilege of earning a living.

As my son likes to say, “Thanks, Obama”.

And kiss my ass.

http://politicalpistachio.blogspot.com/2016/02/small-businesses-getting-crushed-by.html