So, Who Gets the Axe Under Obamacare?
My new post is up at AIP. I decided to try a little thought experiment based on a new Democratic health care proposal that will force small businesses with payrolls of more than $250,000 to give their employees health insurance or pay a rather hefty fine. Here’s an excerpt:
Consider Company A, which employs seven people: a manager, an assistant manager, and five workers. The owner pays himself a salary of $70,000 per year (about $35/hour), the manager $52,000 ($25/hour), the assistant manager $35,000 ($20/hour), and the five employees $21,000 (about $10/hour). That makes a payroll of $262,000. Now, the article doesn’t say how much the fine for a payroll that size would be, so I’ll assume either 6 percent ($15,720) or 4 percent ($10,480). The lowest total, as you can see, is more than half the salary of one of the worker bees and the higher figure is even worse. If I were running that business, I’d say the easiest way to solve my problem would be to fire one of the worker bees. That would reduce my payroll to escape the fine and it would leave me with more money as well. Sure, my business would be less productive, but it’s not terribly difficult to get make up for that one lost employee by having my other six work a little bit harder.
So what kind of businesses might fit Company A’s profile? How about a small restaurant or a neighborhood grocery store? Many franchised convenience stores could meet that description, as could any number of local insurance companies, construction companies, and contractors.
I also suggest a few courses of action. Head over and read the whole thing when you have a moment. Also, feel free to leave comments. The AIP folks love it when people talk back to the posts we write.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin’s latest column makes an excellent companion piece to mine. She attempts to cut a path through the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the bill and find only layers of confusion. I was struck by the number of new bureaucrats the health plan designates to assist the taxpayers versus the number who exist to assist the bureaucracy itself.
Several others have linked to the piece including RealClearPolitics’ Best of the Blogs and memeorandum which gave the post it’s very own entry. Sister Toldjah also linked to it and suggested that you “make sure to read it all”.
Would that John Cole had followed her advice. If he had, he wouldn’t be so puzzled about why I used the words “real faces” in the post title, but began with hypotheticals. As I wrote to some of his equally-puzzled readers in the comment thread at AIP, if you continue to read I move the entire issue from thought experiment to practical action, which is where the “real faces” come into play. Perhaps if he had actually attempted to read and consider the piece instead of stopping halfway through, he wouldn’t have gotten so very confused.
Other Posts of Interest:
- The ObamaCare Cheat Sheet
- Leading Off for the Obamas, Tom Daschle
- Hi! Billy Mays Here for Obamacare!
Category: Blogs and Blogging, Health Care Craziness
Looks like MM gave you a link today….that should make your slave drivers happy!
They do appear to be happy. I've not received my forty lashes by e-mail yet.
[...] So, Who Gets the Axe Under Obamacare? : The Sundries Shack [...]
How about instead of firing an employee, you just cut everyone's salaries? It's still a bargain for them because they now have health insurance. Last time I had health insurance, I contracted for the company first. As a result, I took a $50,000 a year pay cut. Why would I do that? Because I can't get health insurance on the individual market. I'm uninsurable. And given the $2-3 Million dollars in health care costs I'll incur about 15 years from now, the amount of money I need to save to self-insure is close to what I make before taxes. My only choice is to give up my business and hide out in an employer-based insurance plan. I'm better off making $75K a year with insurance than $175K a year without it. And even if I had insurance, there is no guarantee they'd actually cover anything. Insurance companies are under no obligation to pay for any treatment at all. They can just drop you when you get sick, and they don't have to refund your premiums. Without some kind of serious reform, my plan is simple: make as much money as I can over the next eight years, and then move to Thailand where I can afford the treatment I will inevitably need. And I'll take my rather formidable engineering skills to work for a Thai company that competes against Americans. And given that I design the new medical products that Americans rely on, maybe you should think about the value I provide to our health care industry. But what else can I do? Am I supposed to sacrifice my life to save the American insurance industry? Don't count on it. I'd rather help Thailand become a world leader in medical technology.
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[...] So, Who Gets the Axe Under Obamacare? : The Sundries Shack [...]
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