ObamaCare: Unions Confirm Employers Cutting To 29.5 Hours

[_bcspace]

Not what Obama and his Left wing allies in the media are telling you, is it?

AFL-CIO President Trumka: Employers Cutting Workers to 29 1/2 Hours to Avoid ObamaCare

[_cinepro]

Not what Obama and his Left wing allies in the media are telling you, is it?

AFL-CIO President Trumka: Employers Cutting Workers to 29 1/2 Hours to Avoid ObamaCare

I think we should keep quiet about this and pretend it isn't happening. If Obama and congress decide it needs to be "fixed", there's no way the "fix" is going to improve the situation.

[_moksha]

This is unheard of and totally unexpected!!! Who among us could have ever imagined that employers would cut hours in order to avoid paying benefits? At least these unions are in a weaker position to protest thanks to Republican efforts to insure they do not disrupt the distribution of wealth. Plus as Cinepro mentioned, Congress will make sure this circumvention does not get fixed.

[_Analytics]

It's interesting, if not a bit depressing, how many employers really, really don't want to provide health insurance to their employees.

Before ObamaCare, the health care system in the United States consisted of the following:

1- Most workers and their families received health insurance as an employee benefit.

2- If you didn't get health insurance through your job, you could get very expensive insurance through the individual insurance market, presuming you could pass underwriting and could afford the high premiums.

3- The very poor could sometimes get insurance through Medicaid.

4- Depending upon the state, people whop couldn't pass underwriting in the individual market might be able to purchase individual insurance through a government subsidized or mandated pool.

5- Signing up for Medicare when you turn 65 so that you could get health insurance from the government was as American as apple pie.

There were a few problems with that system:

1- It left a huge segment of the population uninsured

2- It led to runaway cost increases

So now we have ObamaCare, and we are finding that many small business owners really, really don't want to offer health insurance to their employees. This raises the question:

Should the main pillar of the American health insurance system be health insurance through your work as an employee benefit?

Yes or no?

If the answer isn't a resounding "yes," the fix is simple: get rid of the employer mandate. And while we're add it, get rid of the tax deductiblity of employer-paid health insurance.

With that quick fix, employers large and small will no longer have to worry about providing health insurance to anybody--they'll know their employees are guaranteed to get affordable insurance in the competitive marketplace. That allows people to buy the insurance they want, and frees businesses to focus on their business rather than this employee benefit.

[_ajax18]

I think it was pretty obvious to what lengths employers would go to avoid paying healthcare. Even before Obamacare companys were using temp agencies for that purpose. Many employers hire on the black market and get away with it already.

[_krose]

I agree that private businesses should not be responsible for providing health insurance to their employees. Expanding Medicare to cover everyone would be a much better solution.

That said, if a business can continue to be successful at the same level -- while cutting employee hours -- they probably don't need as many employees as they have.