Our Chamber of Commerce here in Bucks County PA is on top of things and put together an informative panel this week to help business owners understand better how to be compliant with Obamacare starting Jan 1.
All the rhetoric and promises are facing the tests of reality now and every individual and employer in America needs to learn how this is going to impact them. Here are three things I learned.
1) Young people and other low risk health insured will see increases of up to 150% in their policies.
In Obamacare everyone has to buy insurance and if they're income is lower it will be subsidized. The 20 somethings in our family are low insurance risks and their policies are cheap. Obamacare wipes out much of the cheaper insurance cost for healthy people. The insurance industry speaker said young people in particular will pay 150% more their insurance and get nothing in return. In other words a $100/month policy for a 20 something who is probably underemployed will go up to $250.
The extra payment is used to pay for cheaper insurance for unhealthy people. Naturally, policy makers are worried that the vast pool of underemployed young people will not participate and the extra revenue they need to give to others won't be available.
Healthy people with healthy life styles today have an incentive to take care of themselves to insure themselves at the least cost. Obamacare forcibly removes the incentive to responsibly manage health care costs and risks.
2) Every health insurance policy application is processed at Homeland Security and the IRS before coverage is granted. Why? The stated reason is citizenship has to be verified and the IRS is in charge of making sure everyone is insured and pays the new taxes Obamacare levies. Big Brother and his big data now tie your income, your insurance and your taxation all together and all because you need healthcare.
3) Small business people and employers face unexpected taxes, fines exposure, and insurance liabilities that I have never heard of before. The seminar stated that part time workers are proportionately counted towards meeting 50 full time employee thresholds. If an employer misses a deadline or violates a rule and that is easy to do, they are subject to fines on a per employee, per day basis. Generous plans such as the ones many unions have as well as key employees are taxed directly by the IRS as an excess benefit. Health Savings Accounts that many small business owners use to help manage their health care costs are cut in half, effectively a tax increase on struggling small businesses.
Complying with Obamacare is daunting. There are 11 pages of IRS regulations aloe that cover the taxes and fines pertinent to the law. The strategic planning and costs for a business employing people are now also increasingly subject to political meddling and bureaucracy.
4) Obamacare's primary goal is to put everybody in a centrally controlled health insurance system. The primary device to get support for it is to give some people something they don't have to pay for. The principle means to pay for it is to charge people who have insurance now, more for it.
5) Contrary to the claims of Democratic Party proponents, there is no structural cost savings in Obamacare. It appears to me from the information I have seen that the most overpriced health care system in the world will now simply add 30 million or more additional users and how that is going to be paid for or whether there will be enough care capacity in the system seems Obama hasn't given any serious thought.
The seminar presenters suggest primary care provider relationships be reaffirmed before the rollout. It may become tough to get an appointment otherwise.
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