Obamacare: Employment and Hours Continue To Be Cut

[_EAllusion]

Depending upon your tax bracket, for every $1,000 you choose not to donate to charity (church), you are hit with a $250 penalty. Is that coercing people to donate to donate (pay tithing)?

The complexities of the tax code interfere with the analogy, but yes, for some people they are being coerced into donating to charity or consider funding the government a charitable act.

Many states make the premium you pay on Long-Term Care insurance tax-deductible. Is that coercion to purchase LTCi? Employer-paid health insurance has always been tax-deductible--that's the main reason most Americans get health insurance at work. Is that coercion to offer health insurance to workers?

Well, yeah. Of course it is. That particular act of coercion has been a spectacularly bad idea, but that's neither here nor there.

That's the point--if there wasn't some level of coercion to discourage free-riders, insurance companies wouldn't be willing to sell plans that they were required to sell to everybody.

Yes, the point is to discourage people from opting into health care coverage only when they need it. So they are being forced by lawful penalty to do so. That the force isn't as strong as it could be doesn't change the proper terminology, nor does it require ironic scare quotes around the word force.

I have no problem with having an honest discussion about the individual mandate. But let's not pretend that this is a new, shocking, and unconstitutional way for the government to promote desirable behavior.

Who's doing the pretending in this thread? Your objection was broadly to the idea that people are being forced (i.e. coerced) into buying insurance. They clearly are. After all, as you say yourself, that's the point. That this isn't a new technique for government coercion of behavior is irrelevant. If the government jailed anyone who didn't buy health insurance, that wouldn't be a new method of government coercion of behavior either, but that would have no bearing on whether we can describe the situation as an act of forcing people to buy health insurance.

[_Markk]

On the other hand, if you don't provide your folks with a decent package of pay and benefits, you aren't going to be able to attract skilled workers who can do the job well. Those are the free-market issues we all have to deal with.

The point is, if a company thinks it can hire and retain great workers by having a pay and benefit package that gives its folks $2,000 a month plus health insurance, it is cheaper for the company to pay $2,000 and buy the health insurance than to pay its folks $2,000 plus what it would cost for the workers to purchase insurance on their own.

LOL, you must not live in So Cal, next to the border...but I agree with your point in some field of work, but those fields already get insurance. It is the "poor folks" and unskilled that Obama care is designed for isn't it?

[_Analytics]

The complexities of the tax code interfere with the analogy, but yes, for some people they are being coerced into donating to charity....

I have no problem with having an honest discussion about the individual mandate. But let's not pretend that this is a new, shocking, and unconstitutional way for the government to promote desirable behavior.

Who's doing the pretending in this thread? Your objection was broadly to the idea that people are being forced (i.e. coerced) into buying insurance....

What I originally said was this:

The $95 fine only "forces" people to purchase insurance in the same way that tithing being tax-deductible forces you to pay tithing.

From what I quoted above, it seems you agree with what I actually said.

[_EAllusion]

The ironic scare quotes around forces and the use of the word "only" suggest that you think the government isn't forcing people to buy health insurance in the ordinary way we can talk about the government forcing people to do things. I don't agree with that. The government is forcing people to buy insurance.

Tithing makes for a bad example because it depends a lot on what your tax situation looks like and there are other forms of equivalent charitable contribution besides tithing. The government doesn't force anyone to tithe. It forces a subset of the population to donate to eligible charity groups, of which tithing is one option. Better examples might've been keeping updated car registration or, possibly, home ownership.

[_Analytics]

The ironic scare quotes around forces and the use of the word "only" suggest that you think the government isn't forcing people to buy health insurance in the ordinary way we can talk about the government forcing people to do things. I don't agree with that. The government is forcing people to buy insurance.

Tithing makes for a bad example because it depends a lot on what your tax situation looks like and there are other forms of equivalent charitable contribution besides tithing. The government doesn't force anyone to tithe. It forces a subset of the population to donate to eligible charity groups, of which tithing is one option. Better examples might've been keeping updated car registration or, possibly, home ownership.

I'll just say that I find the word force to be too strong in all of these tax-policy examples we’re talking about. The government incentivizes people to have a mortgage, have lots of kids, donate to charity, make the maximum allowable contribution to their IRA, and purchase health insurance. If you don’t do any of those things your tax bill may be marginally larger, but that doesn’t change the fact that not doing them is a perfectly legal free choice people can and do make.

[_Some Schmo]

I really do sympathize with employers that are trying to find ways around this, because I believe the employer-provided health insurance model is ridiculous. The best solution would have been to expand Medicare to be universal. Everyone needs health care, and the bigger the pool paying in, the better. But this is the best we could get, and all I can hope for is that this is a step towards a better system.

I absolutely agree. Having been raised in a country where universal health care was a given, the conversation about it in this country is just bizarre to me (of course, not nearly as bizarre as the gun culture).

[_cinepro]

If a company say has 150 employees, and in a competitive trade like landscaping. What is there in place to keep the owner from opening three different companies and dividing the work force? This would give him a edge with less burden in bidding work over the same size company that was legit? Business wise this would be a good move, ethically not so good? Who the heck is going to police this?

That won't work. As described in this article:

The only problem with her break-up plan is that it won't work. The government would still consider both of her companies as one. That's because the employer mandate penalty relies on "controlled group" provisions, focusing on who controls the company -- not necessarily what they do.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/13/smallbu ... /index.htm

I actually looked at this for my company...

[_krose]

The only problem with her break-up plan is that it won't work. The government would still consider both of her companies as one. That's because the employer mandate penalty relies on "controlled group" provisions, focusing on who controls the company -- not necessarily what they do.

I did not know that. Thanks for the correct information.