From the Wall Street Journal: Small-business owners across the U.S. are bracing for the health-care law
that kicks in next year, fearing it will increase the cost of providing
insurance to employees.
But Rick Levi, a business owner in Des Moines, Iowa, is among those
considering the government's escape hatch: paying a penalty to avoid the law's
"employer mandate."
Under the Affordable Care Act, employers with 50 or more full-time workers
will be required to provide coverage for employees who work an average of 30 or
more hours a week in a given month. An alternative to that mandate is for
business owners to pay a $2,000 penalty for each full-time worker over a
30-employee threshold.
Mr. Levi currently spends about $140,000 a year on insurance premiums to
cover 25 managerial staff at his business, Consolidated Management, which runs
cafeterias at schools, offices and jails.
Under the new law, he will have to offer insurance to all of his 102
full-time employees starting in January. Assuming all of them take the coverage,
Mr. Levi says the cost of premiums could exceed $500,000....
He says it makes more sense to drop insurance entirely and pay a penalty of
about $144,000.
Gary Epstein, owner of Firstaff Nursing Services Inc. in Bala Cynwyd, Pa.,
has similar plans. He intends to stop offering health insurance benefits at his
home health-care company.
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. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323916304578401413507987532.html
Thousands of people have already been laid off because of ObamaCare with thousands more having their work hours cut.
So those who have been laid off, hours cut or lost or lost their health insurance, you can thank here in Nevada: Senile/liar/coward Harry Reid, Thief Dina Titus and Shelly Berkley.
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